I have mixed feeling about the Bourne films. This one is the sequel to the first, The Bourne Identity. The two movies feature a rogue, on-the-run, amnesiac CIA hit man trying to discover who he really is, and in the process discovering "talents" that he didn't know he had.

As submarine movies go, U-571 is far from a classic. It includes scenes we've seen in countless other submarine films, and its history is warped (implying that the U.S. Navy and not the Royal Navy captured the Nazi Enigma machine and broke the German naval codes—though the end titles do correct the record).

Yes, I know. This film was received by critics as if it was the sequel to Battlefield Earth instead of the follow-up to the cult favorite, Pitch Black. Riddick, you may recall, was once a dangerous, sociopathic villain. Here, like a gravel-voiced Captain Kirk, he arrives just in time to save the universe from the Underverse.

When a rogue Russian extremist seizes control of enough of Russia's armaments to nuke the US, the USS Alabama, along with other nuclear missile subs, is sent in harm's way as a deterrent or possibly even a first-strike weapon to take out the Russian missiles before they can be launched.

Start with a look at Marine boot camp not much different than what we've seen in countless war movies. Move on to a boring look at bored Marines killing time in the desert in the buildup to the 1991 Gulf War. They're depicted as dumb, disorganized, rowdy, and undisciplined. The promotional copy for the movie, included in the cover art, says that the troops are "in a country they don't understand, against an enemy they can't see, for a cause they don't fully grasp. Believe me, the troops in the first Gulf War were fully briefed on the country they were going to, could usually see the enemy (his back, typically), and understood that they were fighting to free a country occupied by the forces of an expansionist dictator. That promotional copy was clearly written as a not-too-subtle analogy to the current Iraq war.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Danny Nucci, Gloria Stewart, David Warner, Victor Garber, and Bill Paxton. Directed by James Cameron. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1. 174 minutes (film). 1997. Dolby Digital 5.1EX, DTS 6.1ES, and 2.0 Dolby Surround (English), French, Spanish. Paramount 03135. PG-13. $29.99.

Avoid a Blue Tuesday by capping off your holiday weekend plans with the end of the world! Whether we will become extinct as a species from within or without is the subject of two movies on DVD, one an environmental-disaster flick of dubious distinction, the other a classic loosely based on the Victorian novel that in turn has inspired a current remake. Thomas J. Norton and Fred Manteghian report on 2004's The Day After Tomorrow: All Access Collector's Edition and 1953's The War of the Worlds.