I don't like writing negative reviews; I would much rather write something positive. This is true for a few reasons; for instance, critics have a reputation for taking pleasure in ridiculing the works of others, so much so that this is usually the image of critics presented in movies. (This was even mentioned in Ratatouille, and even the critic's name, Anton Ego, made this point.) However, this is an unfair caricature, as nearly all critics would rather watch a good movie than write a bad review.

That said, I find myself in a position of having to write a review for a movie that I am having trouble coming up with just one positive aspect to dwell on. Granted, I'm not part of the target audience, but I've reviewed enough films to know when one is just not working. The film is a mish-mash of borrowed ideas that worked better in the originals while pushing a warped message. (For instance, Cloe can't afford to go to college, but she has a $10,000 wardrobe. Maybe if she spent less on clothes, money wouldn't be such an issue.)

As for the extras, they are surprisingly strong for a film that earned just $10 million theatrically. The DVD has an audio commentary track, seven deleted scenes, two music videos, and 12 making-of featurettes on various subjects (casting, fashion, music, etc.). However, while there is a lot here, the quality is rather low, as many of these are only a few minutes long. Combined they are nearly one hour long and for fans of the movie, this is a great collection of extras, but for the rest of us, it will be hard just to get through.

One of the worst reviewed movies of the year, Bratz bombed at the box office. And while the DVD is better than expected, it is still not enough to warrant even a rental. Skip it.

Having seen, and reviewed the previous three releases, I have to say I liked this one the best. The movie, while stunningly bad, was never boring and that gave the trio plenty of opportunity for humor (a lot of it genital related). Yes, the humor here is a little more risqué than MST3K was, but nothing that couldn't been shown on network TV. In addition to the commentary, there were the standard three host bits. Again, the opening was the weakest, but both the lunch bit (a reenactment of the climatic battle), and the farewell (silly hats), were top notch. As were the two extras, an apology to anyone offended by the silly hats bit, and a commentary track from bit player, Walter S. Ferguson. Both extras are worth checking out and have some replay value.

If you enjoyed the previous DVD releases from this series, there is no reason not to pick this one up right away. On the other hand, if you haven't but enjoyed MST3K, check them out. It doesn't matter which one you start with, but I think Film Crew - The Giant of Marathon is the best.

The first three seasons were a little chaotic in Milwaukee. After season one the older brother, Chuck, was abducted by aliens who then mind-wiped everyone in town. (How else can you explain his disappearance?) While in season three, the show stopped being about the Cunningham family and started being a lot more about The Fonz. For some people, this is really the beginning of the series that they remember and love. For others, it was the beginning of the end. (In fact, early in this season Fonzie jumps 14 garbage cans, eerily foreshadowing when the show jumped the shark.)

Sadly, there are no extras on this 4-disc set. There are no subtitles either, but at least they have the play-all button and proper chapter placements.

A major ratings winner for many years, this is a classic TV series from the 70s that a lot of people have found memories of. It should be easy to recommend picking it up, but the lack of extras really hurts. Personally, I think holding out until a full series set comes out might be in order. The discounted price will be more in line with the single DVD releases.

Help! is a movie without a plot. Sure, you could write a brief description of what happens... The film starts off at the lair of a cult who are about to sacrifice someone to their god, Kaili. However, the sacrificial ring, which must be worn by the blessed victim, is missing. Who has it? Ringo of course. At first, the cult merely tries to get the ring back, but when that fails, they decide to paint Ringo red and sacrifice him instead. Oh yeah, there are also some mad scientists trying to get the ring as well. And a woman from the cult trying to help them. ... But this is less of a plot and more of an excuse for a series on non sequitur bits with mostly lame jokes and several songs that are decidedly better than the jokes.

In all honesty, this movie would be nothing without the Beatles. It survives on the charm of the four members, and of course the music. Fortunately they have plenty of both. Fans should enjoy themselves, but others should stay far, far away.

As for the extras, the first disc has none, and I really wanted an audio commentary track. The second disc starts off with a six-part making-of documentary that can be watched as one 30-minute block. With a good mix of new and archival footage (and archival audio as well), it is a fascinating look with excellent replay value. The Restoration of Help! is more in-depth than most similar featurettes and runs just over 11 minutes. Missing Scene is a featurette about a scene cut from the movie (which appears to be lost), while Memoirs of Help! has more reminiscing from the cast & crew. Finally, there are three trailers, two from the U.S. and one from Spain.

Help! gave fans what they wanted to see, The Beatles, both their music and the band members who were clearly having a good time. The 2-disc set is easily worth picking up for fans, and, although I would have liked to see more from Ringo and Paul as part of the extras, or an audio commentary track, what we do get is great. However, there's not enough here to satisfy anyone who is not already a fan of The Beatles.

Adam Samberg stars as Rod Kimble, a wannabe, no-talent stuntman who wants nothing more than to earn the respect of his stepfather, Frank. When Frank needs a heart transplant, Rod decides to do the biggest stunt the town has ever seen to raise the money, but to do that, he's got to train. You could sum it up as, "Stupid people hurting themselves on film." But that would be generous.

Like so many Saturday Night Live films, this movie feels like a 5-minute skit stretched out to a dangerously thin 83 minute feature-length movie. This was true of A Night at the Roxbury or Superstar, but in this case the results were worse than that, far worse. I aggressively, actively hated this movie. I hated nearly every character in the movie. You don't need to like the lead character for a movie to be funny, but you have to at least tolerate their on-screen presence and here I didn't. In fact, I had a lot more sympathy for Frank than I did for Rod or his three friends and in the end I wanted him to win the fight. Isla Fisher was the only other actor to not embarrass herself in the movie, but her character seeming completely underwritten with motivations I didn't understand. Like why did Denise want to hang out with these people? In the movie she says it was because Rod never grew up, but that doesn't make any sense. And one last note, Will Arnett needs to watch out or he will kill his career by typecasting himself.

Considering the movie bombed at the box office, the DVD has a nice selection of extras, but it is a case of quantity over quality. Things start off with an audio commentary track, but if watching the movie was aggravating, listening to these three talk about it was worse. Next up was Ancestors Protect Me: Behind the Scenes of Hot Rod, an 8-minute making-of featurette that explains a lot of the problems with the movie. You can see the alleged comedians from Lonely Island straining to say something funny, and then utterly failing. Isla Fisher was the only actor featured that seemed to understand comedy. In fact, Akiva Schaffer, the director, has better comedic timing than any of these guys do. Even at just 8 minutes long, they still manage to perform overkill on a running gag saying, "Lose the shirt" more than a dozen times.

Next up are 15 deleted scenes that run just under 15 minutes and they are no better than or worse than most scenes that made it into the movie. In fact, they sum up a lot of the problems I had with the movie. The first one has Rod not letting his brother in the front door. This is not a funny premise, it doesn't make you like the lead character, and it goes on way too long. In other words, a perfect summation of the movie. Other clips show a lot of improv that goes nowhere, proving the troupe just doesn't have what it takes. There's optional audio commentary, but it doesn't help.

There are also 3:30 minutes of unfunny outtakes, 4:20 minutes of home movie footage taken by one of the characters, a comparison between the Punch-Dance scene and the one it spoofs from Footloose, and finally, just over a minute look at the orchestra's recording session for the climatic jump. None of which are worth sitting through the first time, so the replay value is zero.

Simply put, I hated this movie. I didn't sympathize with any of main characters, I didn't care about they plight, and I didn't laugh at the material once. Almost all of the humor was killed by the unlikable cast and what little survived that was beaten to death by repetition. There are almost no redeeming qualities here. It feels redundant to say it, but the final recommendation is, "Skip it."

Laverne & Shirley stars Penny Marshall as Laverne and Cindy Williams as Shirley. The two certainly had a lot of chemistry and comedic timing and were willing to throw themselves into whatever outrageous situation the show demanded. And the situations were usually very outrageous and a lot of the humor is basically slapstick. This is not highbrow art by any stretch of the imagination, but it is funny. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure the show needs to be on DVD to be enjoyed.

Like the other releases from the Happy Days family being released this week, this 4-disc set has no special feature and only two of the Big Three (play all button and proper chapter placements).

As it is with Happy Days - Season Three, it is probably best to wait on picking up this DVD until there's a Laverne & Shirley full series set. The DVD set is just too bare bones to pay the price for the full season sets.

I mentioned last week that Billy Bob Thorton overuse of the Willie T. Soke schtick in subsequent movies has soured me somewhat on Bad Santa. Well, the same is true with Robin Williams and Mork & Mindy. What was fresh when the show originally aired now seems stale. It's still funny, but it doesn't have the same zip to it.

As with the Happy Days and the Laverne & Shirley DVD releases, this 4-disc set has no extras and no subtitles, but it does have a play all button and proper chapter placements.

Out of the three similar TV on DVD releases this week, I was most disappointed with Mork & Mindy - Season Three. I grew up watching this show and loved it at the time, but watching it now I failed to connect in the same way. I still laughed, but not as much as I remembered. There's only one more season to be released, so if you have the other two, buying this one makes sense. On the other hand, if you haven't started your collection and were thinking about it, wait until next year when the full series Megaset should be released.

(On a side note, while the movie is coming out on DVD and HD-DVD, this review is for the DVD version only.)

Mr. Bean wins a church raffle and claims the top prize, a vacation to Cannes. However, things go terribly wrong almost immediately when he unintentionally causes a father to be separated from his son. The boy, who only speaks Russia joins with Mr. Bean trying to get to Cannes, but soon after Mr. Bean loses all of his possessions as well, so the pair are stuck in France without money and without being able to speak to each other or the locals. What follows is less of a movie than it is a series of vignettes, some that work, some that don't. (Yes, there is a plot with real characters and story arcs, but one could jump to a random scene and enjoy yourself for the most part.) Unfortunately for everyone, the early ones seem to miss more than they hit and by the time the film hits its stride, a lot of people will have given up, or at least won't be in a prime mood to enjoy the movie as much.

The extras are light, but this is not surprising since it didn't perform particularly well here. Things start off with 17 deleted scenes, most with a total running time of one to two minutes. A lot are just one or two jokes that were not needed and were cut for time, but a few actually have some character development. French Beans is a making-of featurette that is your typical mix of talking head, behind-the-scenes footage, and clips from the movie. It's not fluff and it packs in enough in its 11-minute running time that it is worth checking out. Beans in Cannes is the second making-of featurette, this one focusing on the final section of the movie in Cannes. It's is shorter at under 6 minutes, but is also worth checking out. Finally, Human Bean is about Rowan Atkinson, who is a demanding performer. Mr. Bean is one of his signature roles and this 6-minute featurette doesn't do him or the role justice.

Overall I think the hit to miss ratio is respectable, especially on DVD where you can skip the ones that miss a lot easier. If you are a fan of the first movie, or of the character in general, you should find enough here that you will enjoy that it is worth checking out. That said, there's enough that doesn't work for the replay value to be on the low side and extras are light. Because of this I can't recommend purchasing over just renting.

That is not to say Return to Neverland is a terrible movie, but it is so unnecessary. At best you will get a warm glow of nostalgia for the original, but there are very few out there who will consider it anything more than a pale imitation of the 1953 classic. On a side note, I personally preferred the prelude set in World War II England than in Neverland. Then again, I always thought Peter Pan needed to grow up, even as a kid.

As for the extras, they are no better than the original release and not nearly enough to be considered a special edition. Things start with two deleted scenes, with intros and post-clip commentary, but that's really all that will interest adults. There's also a game for kids with a series of challenges, as well as three previews for the upcoming direct-to-DVD release, Tinker Bell, which comes out next year.

If you own the previous release, there's no reason to buy Peter Pan: Return to Neverland - Pixie-Powered Edition. Even if you don't own it, there's little reason to buy it now over just renting.

Not a lot has changed since the show first started, sure, but budget seems to have increased a lot and there are a lot of special effects to go with the wire work. Speaking of special effects, it's amazing how many of the powers used in the show are just big explosions. It would be nice for more variety; in fact, that's the biggest weakness in the show, the repetitiveness. Just once, I would like to see them transform into the big robots right away and step on the bad guys.

The are two extras on the DVD, firstly a featurette on the vehicles that runs just under 5 minutes and it should be of interest to fans of the show. Secondly, there's a game, the third level of the of the Power Rangers Training Course. The trivia is easy, but piloting the SHARC is frustrating. Choosing the right direction doesn't seem very intuitive and you have to start from nearly the beginning over and over again. At lease the DVD has the big three (play all, subtitles, and proper chapter placement).

There's a lot of action in the show, but the repetition blunts its effectiveness. The extras are rather weak, and I would prefer full season sets. That said, it's pretty good bang for the buck and worth picking up for most fans.