New on DVD: Atonement, Enchanted and I Am Legend

by John P. Meyer

Also: some great releases we missed telling you about last week.

Making their way to the DVD shelves today (March 18) are three films we covered for you during their theatrical releases.

Enchanted blends an animated fairy tale princess story with live-action actors and situations, and Alex found it "... a fun piece of fluff that holds no story surprises, but more than a few storytelling ones." (Cockroaches helping to clean an apartment? Irresistable.)

Atonement once again teams Keira Knightly with director Joe Wright in a stylish, Oscar-nominated period piece, which Alex found to be indeed Oscar-worthy, referring to the film as a "masterwork" and "among the best films of the year."

In I Am Legend, Will Smith reprises the role made famous (?) by Chuck Heston as (seemingly) the last person on earth. Taken from a story by the great Richard Matheson, I found this latest version to offer little new in the genre - except for an ending which diverged from the original version while failing to improve upon it.

BONUS: since I was off in SXSW la la land (i.e., Austin) last week during this time slot, I failed to clue you in on another trio of DVD releases of note, namely Dan in Real Life, August Rush and the Oscar winning best film of 2007, No Country for Old Men.

I should note that all but one of these titles are available in both regular DVD and Blu-ray formats, while Atonement chose to go the HD-DVD route. (Ouch.)