New Spy DVDs Out This Week

The big release this week is Chuck: The Complete Third Season, available from Warner Home Video on DVD and Blu-ray. (Too bad they based the artwork on this campaign instead of this one.) The third season finds everyone's favorite nerdy spy becoming a master spy, as an upgrade in the Intersect imbues him with all sorts of untapped superspy skills. I got behind and ended up missing most of this season, so I'm anxious to catch up on DVD before Timothy Dalton joins the show for Season 4! Extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel and the featurettes "Chuck-Fu... and Dim Sum: Becoming a Spy Guy" and "The Jeffster Revolution: the Definitive Mockumentary." The DVD retails for $59.98 and the Blu-ray for $69.98. (As usual, you shouldn't actually have to pay that much if you know where to shop.)

Also out today is Killers, from Lionsgate Home Entertainment, on DVD and Blu-ray.  I had meant to check this Katherine Heigl/Ashton Kutcher spy comedy in the theater, but missed it, so I'll definitely give it a try on DVD, even if Kutcher seems, to me, all wrong for the part as it was written.  Heigl plays a woman who falls in love with the perfect man and marries him... only to find out that he's actually a spy.  (My favorite line in the trailer was when he confessed that he worked for the "blah blah blah" and had a "license to blah.")  So when he accidentally brings his work home with him, that means gunfights and car chases in their perfect suburban neighborhood.  Tom Selleck plays her father, which is by far the biggest selling point for this Magnum fan.  Extras on both the DVD and the Blu-ray include deleted, alternate and extended scenes, a gag reel and a featurette called “Killer Chemistry: Behind the Scenes with the Killers Cast.” Retail is $29.95 for the DVD and $39.95 for the Blu-ray, but of course both are available much cheaper from Amazon and other online retailers.

Finally, from Universal comes MacGruber, available (of course) on DVD and Blu-ray. MacGruber was the action/spy spoof spun off from a Saturday Night Live sketch that came and went at the beginning of the summer.  It's certainly no masterpiece, but I laughed a lot.  (Read my review here.) The DVD and Blu-ray both come with rated (91 minutes) and unrated (a whopping 95 minutes, making this the Titanic of SNL movies) versions of the film, as well as further deleted scenes, a commentary and a gag reel.  SRP on the DVD is $29.98 and the Blu-ray is $39.98, but of course (fortunately!) those prices don't remotely reflect what you'll actually pay if you know where to shop.