Bowman, Rob

Reign of Fire

Fire-breathing dragons have destroyed modern civilization and humans subsist in disjointed bands until a militia group with air cavalry comes to the rescue.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 25-JAN-2005
Media Type: DVD

The Road Warrior meets Dragonslayer in the briskly entertaining post-apocalyptic action thriller Reign of Fire. Reign of Fire exists primarily to give us a bigger and better dragon than the Vermithrax Pejorative of 1981's classic Dragonslayer, and in that regard, the special effects are mightily impressive; the reptilian fire-breathers are stupendously convincing. While the earlier film offers a richer, more whimsical medieval adventure, Reign of Fire is a fast-moving tale of man versus dragon that takes place in the charred England of 2020, after Earth has been scorched by rapidly multiplying dragons and the aftermath of a futile nuclear counterstrike. Mixing high-tech gadgetry with primitive survivalism, X-Files alumnus Rob Bowman makes the most of his midlevel budget, establishing a lavish castle base for the rugged, adversarial teaming of Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey as dragonslayers on the brink of extinction. With a steady supply of crowd-pleasing highlights, Reign of Fire is a pyrotechnical treat. --Jeff Shannon

The X-Files (aka Fight the Future)

The definitive American television series of the '90s comes to the big screen with an anticlimactic whimper. And how could it be otherwise? Why should material so perfectly realized in one medium necessarily translate well into another? The series is crisply and thoughtfully executed in just about every detail, but the heart of its appeal lies in the elegant handling of complicated and evolving ongoing story lines, which is not something movies are especially good at. The big-screen drive for closure cramps the creative style, though it may also help nonfans get a grip on the proceedings. We do get some invigorating thrills and chills, however, and a more satisfying sense of the scale of an all-enveloping human-alien conspiracy than ever before, but there's no more plot development here than in an average two-part season-ending. FBI black sheep Mulder and Scully have been temporarily transferred from the X-Files project to an anti-terrorist unit to investigate an Oklahoma City-style bombing. They uncover a new wrinkle in the Syndicate/Cancer Man conspiracy--basically an attempt to help one bunch of (benign?) aliens fight off another bunch who want to colonize Earth. A spectacular, ice-bound finale thrillingly staged by series-veteran director Rob Bowman offers Mulder (but not a conveniently unconscious Scully) his first clear look at a You Know What, which in some quarters qualifies as an epochal event. Martin Landau offers the agents some crucial clues, and several familiar TV faces (including the Lone Gunmen and Mitch Pileggi's indispensable Assistant Director Skinner) turn up briefly to wink knowingly at faithful fans. --David Chute

21 Jump Street - The Complete Third Season

Quantum Leap - The Complete First Season

They'll be dancing (well, leaping maybe) in the streets now that the first season of Quantum Leap, voted one of the 25 best cult series ever by TV Guide, has come to home video, a decade after its final year (1994) on the air (the pilot episode was released on DVD in '98). And why shouldn't they? This is a show, called "an imaginative diversion" by one critic, with a good premise that's cleverly and skillfully conceived, written, acted, and produced--ample evidence of which is spread out over three discs, each containing three episodes (plus some fairly meager extras) from the first season.

Scott Bakula, in the role that made him a star, plays Sam Beckett, a scientist who's part of a time-travel experiment that "went a little... ka-ka." Unable to return to his own time, and aided only by Al (Dean Stockwell, whose rapport with Bakula is one of the series' most appealing elements), his cigar-smoking, peculiar-dressing, sex-obsessed, holographic "enabler," Sam "leaps" unpredictably from one time period and person to another, usually completely out of his element (as a pilot, a boxer, a cowboy, an English lit professor, even an elderly black man in segregated '50s Alabama) and always in a situation that needs to be "made right" before he can leap onward. Generous helpings of humor, drama, physical action, and sentimentality (this is TV, after all) keep things moving, as do references to many other classic films and genres (Driving Miss Daisy in "The Color of Truth," Casablanca in "Play it Again, Seymour," boxing in general in "The Right Hand of God") and what creator Donald Bellisario calls the occasional "kiss with history" (Sam crosses paths with the young Buddy Holly and Michael Jackson, among others). It doesn't all work, as Quantum Leap occasionally becomes too cute and facile for its own good. But that and the set's paucity of bonus material (limited to one passable featurette and brief episode intros by Bakula) are the only real shortcomings of a boxed set that will likely earn multiple spins in the DVD player. --Sam Graham

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and Vanished...He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

21 Jump Street - The Complete Second Season

Johnny Depp became an instant heartthrob and certified star in this second season of the Fox-TV sensation co-created by Patrick Hasburgh and Stephen J. Cannell (THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, SILK STALKINGS). Depp stars as Officer Tom Hanson, who along with Doug Penhall (Peter DeLuise), Harry Ioki (Dustin Nguyen) and Judy Hoffs (Holly Robinson Peete) forms an undercover police unit to infiltrate high school crime. Under the command of Captain Fuller (Steven Williams), these tough but compassionate young cops tackle such explosive issues as steroid abuse, crack addiction, racial violence, teen suicide, AIDS, Ioki's escape from Saigon and much more. 21 JUMP STREET - THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON includes all 22 action-packed episodes from the hit `87/'88 season featuring such guest stars as Christina Applegate, Jason Priestley, Pauly Shore and Brad Pitt in one of his first screen roles.

Quantum Leap - The Complete Fifth Season

He s leaped into lives of the past but nothing can compare time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett (Emmy nominee Scott Bakula) and his wise-cracking holographic guide Al (Emmy nominee Dean Stockwell) for the high-stakes groundbreaking adventures that await them in all 21 episodes of the fifth and final season of Quantum Leap! From a presidential assassin to his own great-grandfather to the King of Rock n Roll it s up to his final mission. Complete your Quantum collection with this extraordinary Emmy-winning season that includes such time-stopping guest stars as Brooke Shields Jennifer Aniston Neil Patrick Harris and many more. Available on DVD for the first time ever it also includes images of the actual blueprints from the original sets! He s been on the adventure of many lifetimes is it Sam's time to finally make it home?System Requirements:Running Time: 372 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 025193014627 Manufacturer No: 61030146

Quantum Leap - The Complete Second Season

Quantum Leap - The Complete Third Season

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. - The Complete Series

The world's favorite western/sci-fi/comedy/action cult hit rides again! Here on 8 discs is the complete series about Brisco (Bruce Campbell) a tough-as-rawhide cowpoke debonair ladies' man and Harvard-educated smarty-britches who roams from Frisco to Jalisco in pursuit of outlaws who killed his father...and in search of a mysterious orb possessing out-of-this world powers. Hot lead and cool anachronisms await Brisco as he and his sidekicks - including Comet the intellectual equine who doesn't know he's a horse - fight for justice in the way way way-out West. Put your boots in your stirrups your tongue in your cheek and join the fun. Let's play cowboys and aliens.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. UPC: 012569768338 Manufacturer No: 76833

A science fiction-Western and comedy-drama with echoes of The Wild Wild West and Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.: The Complete Series is uniquely entertaining. Anchored by the comically heroic style of likable B-movie actor Bruce Campbell, Adventures lasted one television season in 1993-94. But it left behind a full 27 episodes (including two two-part stories) full of classic TV Western production values and a running storyline that resembles The X-Files after awhile.

Campbell plays Brisco County Jr., a bounty hunter and son of a legendary U.S. marshal (R. Lee Ermey) gunned down by the villainous John Bly (Billy Drago) and his band of misfits. The younger Brisco is hired by a consortium of businessmen to protect their interests from the likes of Bly, and while he's dedicated to that cause, Brisco is also determined to avenge his father's murder. Helping him do a little of both is a fussy attorney, Socrates Poole (Christian Clemenson); a rival bounty hunter, Lord Bowler (Julius Carry); a wacky inventor, Professor Wickwire (John Astin); and a sultry saloon singer, Dixie (Kelly Rutherford). Rockets, mysterious orbs, and superhuman strength are some of the delightfully out-of-their-element phenomena that find themselves alongside more conventional cowpoke ingredients, including a horse so smart he can chew the ropes binding Brisco's hands. For the most part, the stories stand alone. But as the season progresses, a lot of things get weirder, albeit in a good way: the truth about Bly and his connection to a golden orb everyone wants, for example, are certainly unexpected. But the show is always dazzling, often satiric ("Oy!" Dixie exclaims when Brisco outlines the steps involved in stopping a runaway wagon they're trapped within), yet heartening in an old-fashioned way. Special features include Campbell's reading of a chapter about the series in his autobiography. --Tom Keogh

21 Jump Street - The Complete Fourth Season

The fourth season of Fox's hip undercover cop phenomenon opens with Ioki (Dustin Nguyen) in the hospital and Hanson (Johnny Depp) in prison (falsely convicted of murder). The end of the premiere ("Draw the Line") brings good news for one of them when Penhall (Peter DeLuise) and Booker (Richard Greico) join forces, while the fate of the other looks promising. This is confirmed in the following episode ("Say It Ain't So, Pete"), but by then, Booker will have split the scene (to return for the Booker-Jump Street crossover, "Wheels & Deals").

Other notable episodes include "Eternal Flame," directed by Mario Van Peebles (Baadasssss!) and guest starring a longhaired Thomas Haden Church (Sideways). There's also "Come From the Shadows," in which Penhall marries a Salvadoran refugee to prevent her deportation (and adopts her nephew when he becomes orphaned), "Stand By Your Man," in which Hoffs (Holly Robinson Peete) is the victim of date rape, and "Mike's P.O.V." with a scruffy Donovan Leitch (Gas, Food Lodging) and preppy Vince Vaughn (Swingers).

The rap on the fourth year is that Depp started turning in lackluster performances when he couldn't get out of his contract. Fortunately, he doesn't sink the show, but it's clear his heart isn't in it anymore. On the bright side, 21 Jump Street remained as much a time capsule of the late-1980s as ever with music from the B-52s and Devo and references to Ghostbusters and Back to the Future. (Hoffs' surname was even taken from a notable 1980s figure: Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles.) Once Depp was set free, Fox pulled the plug on the program, which ran for a final season in syndication. In exchange for the Booker episode, this set deletes the season finale, "Blackout," which featured Depp's final appearance as Officer Tom Hanson. --Kathleen C. Fennessy