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One of the few genres that seems to generate consistent box-office revenues these days is the “family movie,” specifically animated pictures that always seem to attract an audience – even if it’s occasionally to varying degrees. Two recent films from this past fall, now on 4K UHD and Blu-Ray, confirm that trend, with Dreamworks’ THE WILD ROBOT (102 mins., 2024, PG; Universal) ranking as one of the very best movies of its kind released in recent memory, and TRANSFORMERS ONE (104 mins., 2024, PG; Paramount), while just a modest box-office performer, offering big, colorful action for series fans of all ages.

The standout here is easily THE WILD ROBOT, writer-director Chris Sanders’ delightful adaptation of the hugely popular Peter Brown book about a shipwrecked robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) that has to acclimate to the surroundings of an island teeming with wildlife. Along the way, the robot, Roz, forges relationships with the assorted animals she discovers, ultimately developing a close bond with an orphaned gosling before some of her fellow robots are dispatched to retrieve her.

Sanders’ script adds some unnecessary, formulaic elements to Brown’s story – especially with its action-oriented climax – but this is otherwise a fabulous and beautifully rendered picture, enhanced throughout by storytelling economy and gorgeous animation. Employing watercolor-like hues, the warmth and design of “The Wild Robot” is highly memorable at a time when so many of these CGI family films are interchangeable in their appearance – the result is a movie that should enchant kids while captivating adults at the same time.

Universal’s 4K UHD serves up as dazzling a presentation (2.39) as you’d anticipate, the movie’s visuals being backed by equally lush Dolby Atmos sound sporting Kris Bowers’ score. An alternate opening with Sanders is included plus commentary, several featurettes, the Blu-Ray and a Digital HD copy. Highly recommended!

Though not in the same league, TRANSFORMERS ONE is still quite an entertaining animated movie, finding a pre-Optimus Prime and Megatron cavorting around Cybertron, uncovering a conspiracy and, eventually, carving out their own, respective identities. It’s a big, colorful and vividly realized CGI animated feature that should entertain Transformers fans and kids alike, boasting an appealing story line and a welcome dose of humor from Keegan-Michael Key’s Bumblebee, partially offsetting its highly dramatic concluding act. Non-fans may not gravitate towards it necessarily, but for what it is, this modestly-budgeted prequel feature directed by Josh Cooley is a bigger success in its own way than most of the live-action movies that preceded it.

Paramount’s 4K UHD is out this week sporting a fantastic Dolby Vision HDR (2.39) presentation with Dolby Atmos sound. Technically this is a flawless presentation on UHD with the Steelbook package also housing the Blu-Ray and a Digital HD code. Extras incude a number of behind-the-scenes featurettes.

New From Kino Lorber

William Friedkin’s tight, straightforward THE HUNTED (94 mins., 2003, R; Kino Lorber) is a gritty, exciting chase movie offers little in the way of plot or character development, but nevertheless manages to entertain due to the director’s no-nonsense execution.

Benicio Del Toro plays Aaron Hallam, an army special forces assassin who loses his grip on reality after experiencing the horror in Kosovo. After holing up in the woods of Oregon and killing off a pair of hunters in the process, the authorities opt to call in tracker Tommy Lee Jones, who — in a Colonel Trautman kind of way — trained Del Toro years before into become a killing machine. Lee Jones knows Del Toro’s every move, which includes escaping from the clutches of the army, running amok in the city, and trying to elude the good guys at each turn.

Scripted by David & Peter Griffiths and Art Monterastelli, “The Hunted” is a basic cat-and-mouse game that’s efficiently directed by Friedkin and well performed by Lee Jones and Del Toro. The two have enough chemistry together in their brief scenes to off-set the scant character development in the rest of the piece — this is a movie about two men and their separate desires (one to escape, the other to capture him), played out on the level of a straight-ahead action movie. Therefore, the movie never gets sidetracked with supporting players or subplots, though Connie Nielsen is solid as a cop working with Lee Jones — if anything, the film could have benefited from more of her character. On balance, this is an effective piece that feels like a “Rambo” variant – and it’s no surprise that Monterastelli ended up working with Sylvester Stallone on the fourth “Rambo” just a short time later.

Brian Tyler’s score is functional at best (what little there is of it), but, for the most part, the lack of depth in “The Hunted” ends up serving the picture well. This is an unpretentious and vividly shot thriller (major kudos to cinematographer Caleb Deschanel) that I long felt could become something of a cult favorite. The pursuit scenes are exciting, the performances strong, and the script compelling enough to make you fill in the gaps about the movie’s backstory. Along the way, Friedkin raises questions about the nature of killing, and the father-son relationship between Del Toro and Lee Jones — questions that give the film a microcosm of depth through its 94 minutes.

Kino Lorber’s 4K UHD of “The Hunted” looks great, enhancing the previous Blu-Ray and HD master thanks to its 4K scan of the 35mm OCN (1.85) with Dolby Vision HDR. This is one of the label’s strongest UHDs of late and the DTS MA soundtrack – like much of Friedkin’s work – is elaborately designed with surround effects. Archival special features include a typically strong commentary by Friedkin; whether you agree with his reading of the film or not, he’s always compelling to listen to. A handful of fully completed and scored deleted scenes are included – they’re mostly disposable aside from a noteworthy exchange between Nielsen and her boss. Four Making Of segments (totaling a bit under 30 minutes) examine the filming of the piece, while the original trailer is also included. Well worth a look for action fans.

Science fiction of a dated kind is on-tap in THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (293 mins., 1980), a Charles Fries-produced mini-series that starred Rock Hudson in a sprawling attempt to parlay off the success of “Star Wars” and the ensuing sci-fi craze of the late 70s. Regrettably, this lengthy (and oft-delayed) NBC broadcast was just one in a long line of disappointing attempts to cinematically capture the prose of author Ray Bradbury, with writer Richard Matheson struggling to mix adventure and ecological preachifying, all under Michael Anderson’s indifferent direction.

It’s a nice try, at least, with Hudson leading one of several expeditions to Mars, nearly all of which meet with some kind of terrible fate, mostly related to mankind’s inherent shortcomings. The message is clear, but it’s interesting watching Matheson balance some “Twilight Zone”-esque twists with action that occasionally comes straight out of a “Star Trek” playbook – down to a score by Stanley Myers (and Richard Harvey) that’s alternatively terrific and terrible in equal measure. The cast, meanwhile, includes Bernie Casey, Darren McGavin, Roddy McDowall and Fritz Weaver, along with Bernadette Peters, Gayle Hunnicutt and the original TV “Spider-Man,” Nicholas Hammond (Fries produced that series as well). It’s mildly diverting in sections but much too long overall, and dramatically relies on the ridiculous conceit that the human arrivals on Mars would so quickly, and with such little hesitation, accept the fact that their dead/missing relatives are alive and well on the Red Planet, with neighborhoods that match their old hometowns to boot!

Kino Lorber brings “The Martian Chronicles” back to Blu-Ray following their 2018 disc, reprising that release’s solid MGM-licensed 1080p (1.33) master that’s still in decent shape – no question this Malta/Canary Islands-lensed production looks far better here than it ever did on broadcast TV. The DTS MA mono sound is OK, with new commentaries by Amanda Reyes and different “historians” paired with an interview with actor James Faulkner, carried over from KL’s previous disc.

BELOW 4K UHD/Blu-Ray (105 mins., 2002, R; Kino Lorber): David Twohy’s entertaining filmography offers everything from the Charlie Sheen sleepers “Terminal Velocity” and cult fave “The Arrival” to a batch of Vin Diesel “Riddick” movies. “Below,” a 2002 production Twohy retooled from a Darren Aronofsky/Lucas Sussman script, alas, hasn’t aged well – an overwritten WWII submarine thriller about a Bruce Greenwood-captained American sub that takes on a pair of mysterious surface survivors (including Olivia Williams) just before the crew begins to witness supernatural occurrences. Loads of cliches dominate this overlong effort which found Twohy reworking Aronofsky’s wilder (and cooler sounding) premise of an alien creature menacing the sub; his big reveal involving ghostly retribution proves to be hardly worth the wait while Twohy’s refusal to tone the movie down for a PG-13 meant Miramax dumped “Below” out in a limited run where it promptly sank to the bottom of the box-office. Kino Lorber’s 4K UHD hails from an attractive Dolby Vision HDR master (1.85) with a dynamite DTS MA 5.1 soundtrack. Extras are carried over from the old DVD including commentary, deleted scenes, a featurette and the trailer.

ONE, TWO, THREE Blu-Ray (109 mins., 1961; Kino Lorber): One of Billy Wilder’s finest comedies, “One, Two, Three” stars Jimmy Cagney as a Coca-Cola salesman whose boss’s daughter (Pamela Tiffin) falls for a communist (Horst Buchholz) in early ’60s West Berlin. This Cold War-era farce, written by Diamond and collaborator I.A.L. Diamond, offers big laughs and a fast pace, plus one of its star’s finest performances. Based on a play by Ferenc Molnar, “One, Two, Threee” is a film that does belong to a particular time and place, but remains funny and entertaining due to Wilder and Diamond’s script, the director’s perfect sense of comic timing, and Cagney’s winning performance – rated by many as one of his best. Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray offers a 1080p (2.35) AVC encoded, MGM-licensed B&W transfer – a perfectly serviceable if not significant enhancement over the DVD – with DTS MA mono sound; this is a reissue of their 2017 disc with a higher bit-rate that yields some minor but not unwelcome gains in the encoding department. Extras include that release’s commentary by historian Michael Schlesinger, archival Wilder comments with Volker Schlondorff and “Billy Wilder on Politics on ‘One, Two, Three,” plus trailers.

MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON Blu-Ray (135 mins., 1990, R; Kino Lorber): Absorbing look at the relationship between Richard Burton and John Speke, British officers who set out to find the source of Egypt’s Nile River, was not a box-office success for Carolco back in 1990. Yet, this atypical pet project for director Bob Rafelson – who scripted alongside novelist William Harrison, adapting his “Burton and Speke” novel – offers something of an “intimate epic,” accentuating characterization and relying on the performances of Patrick Bergin and Iain Glen to generate much of the drama. “Mountains of the Moon” works once the viewer understands the film isn’t vying for a David Lean type of approach but one that gets inside the heads of its protagonists. Roger Deakins’ natural cinematography looks good in this Studio Canal HD master (1.78, 2.0 DTS MA stereo) with an archival Making Of, the trailer, and a commentary by critic Adrian Martin offered on the supplemental end.

NO. 1 OF THE SECRET SERVICE Blu-Ray (86 mins., 1977, PG; Kino Lorber): One of the many James Bond spoofs of its day – albeit barely seen over the years – “No. 1 of the Secret Service” features Nicky Henson as “Charles Bind,” an agent tasked to stop Richard Todd’s crazed millionaire from carrying out a murder plot. This British comedy offers familiar faces like Bond series vet Geoffrey Keen, Sue Lloyd, Dudley Sutton and Jon Pertwee, plus widescreen trappings to boot, in a pre-Golan-Globus Cannon production making its Blu-Ray release from Kino. The 1080p (2.35) MGM supplied transfer is just fine with an interview with editor John Luton, Chris O’Neill video essay, deleted scenes and the trailer all included. There’s also a highly amusing commentary featuring Alan Spencer with “Algernon Griffiths,” a persnickety British author who gets quite irritated towards the end. It’s often funnier than the movie itself!

Also New on 4K UHD

GALAXY QUEST 4K UHD (101 mins., 1999, PG; Paramount): Take a bit of “The Last Starfighter,” mix with generous doses of “Star Trek” satire, add a game cast, and you have all the makings for a light, often very funny sci-fi comedy that’s become a fan-favorite in the 25 years (really?) since its original release. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tony Shalhoub bring a deft comic touch to this engaging comedy, which managed to please sci-fi fans, Trekkies, young kids, and genre aficionados upon its release in ‘99. Industrial Light & Magic’s effects are superior to their later Trek offerings and although David Newman’s score doesn’t offer any surprises, “Galaxy Quest” is terrific fun, and far more entertaining than, say, Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs.”

Paramount is commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Dreamworks production with the movie’s first-ever 4K release this week, a good looking (as expected) Dolby Vision HDR (2.35) presentation with Dolby Atmos sound. A cornucopia of extras, brought over from previous releases, include a new “Filmmaker Focus” intro with director Dean Parisot and archival supplements (Making Of featurette, deleted scenes, Thermian audio track and more).

Out this week in a brand-new Limited Edition Collector’s Set is PULP FICTION (154 mins., 1994, R; Paramount), Quentin Tarantino’s celebrated box-office smash that represents his peak behind the camera. Paramount’s 4K UHD (2.35) is one of their best format forays in some time, offering Dolby Vision HDR that does justice to Tarantino and DP Andrzej Sekula’s lensing, bringing out highlights in contrast while remaining faithful to its visual scheme; in short, there’s no reason to worry here that the transfer isn’t a worthy upgrade for fans, while ample extras (on Blu-Ray) offer cast interviews, Cannes Film Festival footage, deleted scenes, even the original Siskel & Ebert review. A Digital HD copy is included in the glossy cardboard case along with a replica contact sheet, lobby card, stickers, and pop-up slipcover. This limited-edition set is, for the moment, exclusive to Amazon.

ROCK ‘N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL 4K UHD/Blu-Ray (93 mins., 1979, PG; Shout!): Allan Arkush’s manic “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School” stars “Halloween” vet P.J. Soles in the liberating tale of a group of cooky kids who rebel against the tyrannical rule of a new principal. Sole and her pals (Vincent Van Patten, Clint Howard among them) recruit The Ramones to strut their stuff in this highly entertaining pic, one of Roger Corman’s most satisfying productions, co-produced and written by Joe Dante and Michael Finnell. Shout! Factory’s 4K UHD of “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School” offers a Dolby Vision HDR (1.85) transfer that looks pleasingly natural and detailed, while also including a documentary, “Class of ’79: 40 Years of ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll High School’,” which boasts conversations with Arkush, Soles, Dante, cinematographer Dean Cundey and plenty more. This is in addition to all the fabulous extras from a myriad of previous laser/DVD editions, including multiple commentaries; audio outtakes, and numerous interviews. Brand-new and exclusive to this release is an interview with Marky Ramone along with a new commentary (joining four other tracks!) featuring author Stephen B. Armstrong; fans should note the set also includes a similarly remastered 2-disc Blu-Ray, which includes the same extras and isn’t just a rehash of its 2019 Steelbook release.

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD 4K UHD/Blu-Ray (94 mins., 1972; Shout!): Werner Herzog’s most intense and memorable feature follows conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro (Allejandro Repulles) and his soldiers into the Andes searching for El Dorado, where a crazed Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) leads them all, ultimately, to their doom. Surrealism and indelible visuals from Herzog and cinematographer Thomas Mauch make for a spellbinding, short cinematic experience restored here in a 35mm OCN negative scan, with Dolby Vision HDR (1.33), from Shout. The image is splendidly detailed and is backed here with lossless DTS MA sound in both 5.1/2.0 iterations across both German and English. Two commentaries with Herzog, one each in German and English, are included on the supplemental side along with the trailer.

LITTLE WOMEN 4K UHD (118 mins., 1994, PG; Sony): Lyrical filming of the Louisa May Alcott classic from director Gillian Anderson offers a dynamite ensemble of Winona Ryder, Trini Alvarado, Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes, Samantha Mathis and Susan Sarandon backing Robin Swicord’s relatively faithful 1994 adaptation. Produced by Denise Di Novi, this was an elegant studio production that offers high talent across the board, from Thomas Newman’s glistening, London Symphony-recorded score to Geoffrey Simpson’s wintry cinematography, the movie having been shot in BC and western Massachusetts. It makes for a lovely revisit – especially at this time of year – via Sony’s 4K UHD, which boasts Dolby Vision HDR (1.85) and 5.1/2.0 DTS MA sound. Archival extras include Armstrong’s commentary, featurettes, two deleted scenes, the trailer and a Digital HD code.

Quick Takes

Also New From Shout: Viggo Mortensen wrote, directed and stars in the western THE DEAD DON’T HURT (129 mins., 2023, R), a meditation on violence and Old West tropes that’s supposed to be revisionist in nature but feels a bit predictable. Mortensen plays a Danish immigrant who returns home to his tough frontierwoman partner (Vicky Krieps) where she’s been left to take on a number of obstacles including a shady businessman (Garret Dillahunt), his son (Sully MacLeod) and the local Mayor (Danny Huston) who may not be as friendly as he appears. Mortensen is more a supporting player in his own movie, which is well-made and ends well, though the time-frame cross-cutting does it little favors and comes off as unnecessary. Deleted scenes, a featurette, and conversation between Mortensen and Jane Campion are included in Shout’s now-available Blu-Ray (2.35, 5.1 DTS MA)…Yes, Winnie is back, and he’s just as irritated in WINNIE-THE-POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY 2 (94 mins., 2023, R), with director Rhys Frake-Waterfield returning – with a new cast and notably higher production values – as Pooh, Piglet and Tigger decide to rack up another body count and wage revenge on poor Christopher Robin. Simon Callow appears (!) in this bigger and, arguably, better installment for those viewers who stomached the original. Shout’s Blu-Ray offers a 1080p (2.39) transfer and 5.1/2.0 DTS MA sound.

NEVER LET GO Blu-Ray (101 mins., 2024, R; Lionsgate): Alexandre Aja has produced a few decent horror outings over the years but his attempts to meld together an apocalyptic, “Quiet Place”-like tale with psychological horror doesn’t come off effectively in “Never Let Go.” This in spite of Halle Berry’s performance as a mother trying to keep her two kids from “the Evil,” which she claims has decimated society – it all ends up a “is it real or isn’t it?” type of thriller that goes back, and forth, and back, and forth, in a script by KC Coughlin and Ryan Grassby that turns out to be unsatisfying. Lionsgate’s Blu-Ray does include a dynamite Dolby Atmos soundtrack and 1080p (2.11) transfer with deleted scenes, the trailer, two featurettes, a DVD and Digital HD code also included.

NEXT TIME: Arrow unleashes DEMOLITON MAN on UHD! Until then, don’t forget to drop in on the official Aisle Seat Message Boards and direct any emails to our email address. Cheers everyone!