I finally caught up with the box office phenomenon Deadpool on Blu-ray. I laughed myself silly during the hilarious opening credits, which spoofs both the action sub-genre of superhero movies and the film itself. I wish the rest of the film had been as clever or as funny.

Ryan Reynolds gives one of his most ingratiating performances as the disfigured hero hiding behind his superhero mask and Morena Baccarin makes a charming leading lady even though she’s gone for much of the film. They are, however, the chief reason to watch the film. The other characters are cookie cutter stereotypes and there are way too many CGI car crashes and senseless violent deaths to suit my taste. I’d recommend writer-director Rhett Reese put more emphasis on the self-deprecating comedy and less on the ever-mounting body count in the upcoming sequel. Somehow, though, I suspect the money men will be looking for more of the same to satisfy the appetites of the huge audiences who loved the film just as it is.

Deadpool is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

I also caught up with the box-office hit The Boy from earlier in the year on Blu-ray as well.

TV actress Lauren Cohan, best known for The Walking Dead, is a new face to me. She acquits herself well as the American girl brought to England to care for a young English boy who she quickly discovers is a doll who she is expected to dress, prepare food for and entertain by playing music as though he were a real live boy. Things happen that make her think the doll is alive, eventually bringing delivery man Rupert Evans (Hellboy) into her confidence. Then the fun begins.

The low-key style of William Brent Bell’s mild horror film keeps you guessing to the end and beyond. Be sure to watch through the final credits for the set-up for a possible sequel.

The Boy is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Nichols Sparks keeps churning out formulaic novels about love found and love lost and found again. Film producers keep churning out films from those novels that certain audiences can’t seem to get enough of. The best of them, 2004’s The Notebook, benefitted from the strong acting of Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner and Gena Rowlands under the equally strong direction of Rowlands’ son, Nick Cassavetes. Most of the others tend to wilt from overexposure to sappy stories laden with twists that ultimately turn to clichés. Such is the case with the 11th film to be made from a Sparks novel called The Choice.

Benjamin Walker seems to have a lot of charisma on stage, particularly in the current Broadway musical version of American Psycho. Although he’s been in such high profile films as Kinsey, Flags of Our Fathers, and In the Heart of the Sea, the only film that he himself seemed to make a strong impression in is one that I haven’t seen, 2012’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in which he played the title role. As the struggling young veterinarian in The Choice, he’s about as charismatic as a wet blanket. Australian actress Teresa Palmer fares no better as his winsome neighbor. If you can’t figure out his eventual “choice” and the decision he makes about it, you probably have never seen a Lifetime movie or an episode of a long-running TV soap opera. In that case, keep plenty of tissues on hand for the “aw shucks” moment that serves as the film’s climax.

The Choice is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Christopher Plummer continues to get better with age. At 86, going on 87, he’s still sharpening his considerable acting chops. The Canadian actor has another sterling role in Atom Egoyan’s Remember.

Plummer plays a 90-year-old survivor of Auschwitz who, although suffering from dementia, is given the task of seeking out the Nazi who killed his family seventy years ago and killing him. It sounds far-fetched but Plummer and his fellow actors make you believe a good deal of it. It’s easily Egoyan’s best film since his dual Oscar nominations for writing and directing 1997’s The Sweet Hereafter

Remember is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Stephen Daldry was one of the top name directors of the early 2000s. Nominated three times for a Best Director Oscar from 2000 through 2008 for Billy Elliot, The Hours, and Doubt, his 2011 film, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, split critics but was nevertheless nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It’s quite shocking then that his latest film, last year’s Trash, slipped by practically unnoticed despite the high profile casting of Martin Sheen and Rooney Mara.

Sheen and Mara may get top billing, at least on the Blu-ray and DVD covers, but they actually have supporting roles in Daldry’s Brazil-based film from Andy Mulligan’s novel. Whereas the novel was set in the slums of Manila in the Philippines, the film is set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.

The film’s real stars are three first-time child actors (Rickson Tevez, Eduardo Luis, Gabriel Weinstein) who find the wallet of a murdered investigative reporter (Wagner Maura) containing the key to information that could bring down the crooked politician about to become the new mayor of the city. Daldry, who has a proven track record of getting the best out of child actors, does so once again with these three. The high octane film was a BAFTA nominee for Best Film Not in the English Language. Although predominantly in Portuguese, English is also spoken, notably by Sheen and Mara who play a missionary priest and a teacher at his mission, respectively, who help the boys.

Trash is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Patty Duke’s last theatrical film before she turned almost exclusively to TV roles was 1972’s You’ll Like My Mother, which has been newly upgraded to Blu-ray by Shout Factory.

Lamont Johnson directs Duke in a memorable performance as the pregnant widow of a soldier killed in Vietnam. She takes three buses from Los Angeles to northern Minnesota to visit her husband’s family just as a major storm is starting. Promoted as a horror movie, this is really a thriller in which Duke’s life is put in jeopardy by her situation. You’ll figure out why before the secrets of Rosemary Murphy, Richard Thomas, and Sian Barbara Allen are revealed by the screenplay.

This week’s new releases include the Blu-ray upgrades of Dark Passage and I Saw What You Did.