Capsule reviews of the this week’s video releases, on DVD and Blu-ray, including special features:
• “Kingsman: The Secret Service” (R, 130 minutes, Fox): Colin Firth plays a dapper, James Bond-like super-agent in this spy thriller based on a graphic novel series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. It’s both a sharp send-up of spy movies and a silly celebration of action movie cliches in the Quentin Tarantino mold. It even boasts Samuel L. Jackson as the villain Richmond Valentine, a billionaire Internet entrepreneur with a diabolical plan. The plot is at once ridiculous and smart. Contains violence, obscenity, brief nudity and suggestive dialogue. Extras include commentary track and a 90-minute making-of that includes a panel-to-screen look at the education of a 21st century spy, gadgets, fight scenes and comic book origins.
• “Red Army” (PG, 85 minutes, in Russian with subtitles, Sony): In this swift, smart, often very funny documentary, Gabe Polsky takes an unprecedented look at the legendary Soviet-era hockey program and its life after glasnost, exposing an athletic system that became a crucial symbol of Communist history and politics, but also discipline, grace and brooding, melancholy soul. All of those qualities abound in Slava Fetisov, the storied Soviet who serves as the documentary’s charismatic protagonist and Polsky’s occasionally irascible foil and goad. Their sometimes testy relationship is established early in the film. Extras include commentary with Polsky and executive producer Werner Herzog, deleted scenes, an interview with legendary Canadian hockey coach Scotty Bowman, a Q&A with Polsky and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and a Toronto International Film Festival Q&A with Polsky.
• “Serena” (R, 109 minutes, Magnolia Home Entertainment): Susanne Bier’s dark drama, an adaptation of Ron Rash’s 2008 novel, is set during the Great Depression around the Smoky Mountains, where George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) runs a timber enterprise with hopes of expanding his business to South America. But first he has to sort though some complications. In the midst of them, George weds the spitfire Serena (Jennifer Lawrence), whose late father also was a logging man. Contains violence and sexual situations. Extras include an interview with Bier and screenwriter Christopher Kyle and interviews with Cooper and Lawrence.
