The third sequel to Sylvester Stallone's boxing blockbuster combines the ringside sports melodrama of the previous installments with the Cold War patriotism of the star/director's other motion-picture series of the '80s, the "Rambo" saga. Stallone is back as Rocky Balboa, the heavyweight champion of the world and now good friend of his one-time nemesis, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). Creed is brutally slaughtered in the boxing ring during a lop-sided exhibition match against the superhuman Russian boxer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), an event that Rocky takes personally. Vowing revenge against Drago in the name of Creed and the United States, Rocky is invited to the Soviet Union for a matchup and hires Creed's former manager (Tony Burton) to get him in shape. While Drago trains using the latest technology, Rocky's ascetic preparations are a low-key affair of carrying logs up hills through knee-deep Russian snow.

The Farrelly Brothers set this romantic comedy in their home state of Rhode Island. In 1985, when teen-nerd Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller) challenges a high-schooler who's bullying retarded Warren Jenson (W. Earl Brown), his concern prompts Warren's sister, the dazzling and desirable Mary Jenson (Cameron Diaz) to choose Ted as her senior prom date, a fact Ted's pals find hard to believe. However, on prom night, Ted gets his penis caught in his zipper, so the much-desired date never happens. Living in Providence and waxing nostalgic 13 years later, Ted hires Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) to locate Mary, and the creepy private investigator finds her in Miami, where she lives with her tan-shriveled roommate Magda (Lin Shaye). After Pat develops a stalker-style fixation on the lovely, unattached Mary, he lies to Ted, telling him that she's now an overweight mother confined to a wheelchair. Employing professional eavesdropping equipment, Pat gathers a dossier on Mary's life and future plans, information that forms the basis for more lies when Pat begins dating her. Sure enough, Mary falls for Pat, although her friend Tucker (Lee Evans) is very suspicious of Pat's claim to be a Harvard-educated architect. Meanwhile, Ted learns the truth but continues to encounter offbeat obstacles as he accelerates to Miami in hopes of finding happiness with his true love. Former Modern Lovers singer Jonathan Richman vocalizes a narrative ballad of onscreen commentary in the Cat Ballou (1965) tradition. Most of the cast sings and frolics to Build Me Up, Buttercup during the closing credits.

Get ready, dude! The two hardest-rocking time travelers in cinema history are preparing to land in your living room -- and they've got an impressive bonus disc jam-packed with a variety of completely non-bogus extras -- all courtesy of MGM Home Entertainment. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and offers closed-captioned English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio with optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey travels down the dark path to perdition with a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and audio rendered in English Dolby Digital 5.1, and French, Spanish, or Portuguese Mono with optional English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles. Bonus materials on Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure include a theatrical trailer, while extras on Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey include a theatrical trailer and a behind-the-scenes featurette. If the bonus materials seem limited on the actual movie discs, MGM has certainly made up for it with an entire bonus disc that's brimming with extras. Materials on this disc include "The Most Triumphant Making-Of" documentary; a conversation with screenwriters -- and Bill and Ted inspirations -- Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon; "Hysterical Personages," biographies of nine historical dudes and a babe dressed as a dude; the premiere episode of the cartoon series; an interview with guitarist Steve Vai; an air guitar tutorial; a "From Scribble to Script" gallery; a "Linguistic Stylings of Bill and Ted" video dictionary; and radio spots.

Michael Ritchie directed Eddie Murphy in the fantasy-adventure The Golden Child, which comes to DVD with a widescreen transfer that preserves the orignal theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. English soundtracks are rendered in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Surround, while a French soundtrack has been recorded in Dolby Digital Mono. There are no subtitles, but both English soundtracks are closed-captioned. Supplemental materials are limited to theatrical trailers. The picture and sound quality on this Paramount release are both quite good, but the lack of extras make it difficult to swallow the high list price.