Hollywood @ Home

DVD reviews: 'Grinch,' 'Apes,' Olsens

By Paul Chambers
Special to CNN

(CNN) -- What do talking apes, a hairy Grinch and the Olsen twins have in common? The answer really isn't that tough at all. They all have debut discs this week at the video store.

In this edition of "Hollywood @ Home," we'll check into "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!", director Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes," and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's vacation photos.

So let's not monkey around. All ratings are on a 10-point scale.

"Planet of the Apes" (2001) (Fox Home Entertainment)

The big gripe about this year's big-budget remake of "Planet of the Apes" is that the movie was a disappointing directorial effort by offbeat filmmaker Tim Burton (1990's "Edward Scissorhands" and 1999's "Sleepy Hollow"). It's a valid complaint -- this action-adventure film is less like any Burton film to date, and could have been directed by almost anyone. However, if you brush aside the chief complaint, you're left with a fairly decent rethinking of a classic science fiction movie. The 2001 version of "Planet of the Apes" is a serviceable action film that is worth a second viewing.

DVD extras: Fox may have overloaded this two-disc set with too many options. My original review disc wouldn't load into my DVD player, and there were problems with the replacement disc as well. I was locked out of the special Nuon features, such as the "viddies" and "cool zooms," even though my DVD player is equipped with a Nuon processor that allows you to do these things. An HBO special, many featurettes on the making of the film, and four-window screen tests are available to anyone (though, in another disc malfunction, I couldn't manipulate the switching function that lets you change your audio to a different window). Please keep in mind my bad experience involved only two discs. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of them work just fine.

Rating: 7

"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" (2000) (Universal Studios Home Video)

This is another one of those discs that needs little hype to become a hit -- you'll even find it at your local supermarket. Too bad the film was such a misfire. There isn't a more talented mainstream director than Ron Howard working in Hollywood, but he missed the boat on the telling of this classic children's story. What should have been a sweet and simple story was instead translated into a noisy mishmash of makeup, props and overacting. The No. 1 offender: Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Jim, let's take it down a few notches. In fact, let's try ground level next time, just to see if you can do it.

DVD extras: Kudos to Universal for including DVS for the visually impaired. DVS, which stands for Descriptive Video Service, helps the blind and others understand what is going on from scene to scene. Only a few movie theaters in the United States are equipped with a similar service. There are also singalongs and read-alongs for the kids, some deleted scenes and some amusing outtakes, along with many other features.

Rating: 6

"Holiday in the Sun" (2001, direct-to-video) (Warner Home Video)

Those 15-year-old twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, escape to the Bahamas with their parents and get involved with an antiquities smuggling ring. Most of this dreadful film was shot at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort, and the filmmakers never let you forget. There are so many scenes showing off the hotel you almost expect the hotel's reservations number to flash onto the screen, and enough product placement that you have to wonder if there were any production costs at all. The Olsen twins are listed as producers, and they do their own costumes, which are actually pretty snappy. But, c'mon, girls, we can do better than this 88-minute commercial. One of the worst films I've seen in my 16 years as a film critic.

DVD extras: A behind-the-scenes featurette and a short ditty on the twins' fashion choices. There's also a music video with a generic teen band.

Rating: 1

Also new this week on DVD and VHS:

"Apocalypse Now Redux" (Paramount Home Entertainment)
"Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series" (Fox Home Entertainment)
"Learning Guitar for Dummies" (Anchor Bay Entertainment)
"The Best of Friends: Volumes 3 and 4" (Warner Home Video)
"The Breed" (Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment)
"First Love and Other Pains" and "One of Them" (First Run Features)
"New York in the Fifties" (First Run Features)
"Backyard Dogs" (Artisan Home Entertainment)
"The Item" (Artisan Home Entertainment)
"The Stunt Man" and "The Sinister Saga" (Anchor Bay Entertainment)
"The Matrix Revisited" (Warner Home Video)

On DVD only:
"Dirty Harry: 30th Anniversary Reissue" (Warner Home Video)
"Magnum Force" (Warner Home Video)
"The Enforcer" (Warner Home Video)
"Sudden Impact" (Warner Home Video)
"The Dead Pool" (Warner Home Video)
"Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows" (Warner Home Video)
"The Outlaw Josey Wales: 25th Anniversary Edition" (Warner Home Video)
"Strange Invaders" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"The Angry Red Planet" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"At the Earth's Core" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"Empire of the Ants" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"I Bury the Living" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"Morons From Outer Space" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"The People that Time Forgot" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"War Gods of the Deep" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"St. Elmo's Fire" (Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment)
"Gang Related" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"The Dogs of War" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"An Eye for an Eye" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"Invasion USA" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"Lone Wolf McQuade" (MGM Home Entertainment)
"Lord of the Flies" (MGM Home Entertainment)