New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Mission & Zohan

Mission: Impossible: The Fifth TV Season

Dig that groovy purple cover! Now solidly rooted in the Seventies (following the occasional fashion hints in Season 4), Season 5 introduced Lesley Ann Warren as the show's first female regular since Barbara Bain left after the third season) and a young, mustacheless Sam Elliot. Leonard Nimoy returned for one more season, as well as all the other regulars from Season 4. Season 5, which ran from 1970-71, is the last season to retain the series' original overseas espionage focus, with nearly half the episodes already turning toward the American "Syndicate" who would prove the IMF's enemy for its final years. So, needless to say, Mission: Impossible: The Fifth TV Season is an essential purchase for spy fans!

You Don't Mess With the Zohan

The intriguing premise for this Judd Apatow-produced comedy was "Adam Sandler as a top Mossad agent who quits to become a hairdresser." Unfortunately, in the final product Sandler's Zohan is more superhero than super-agent, trading gravity-defying blows with John Turturro’s surprisingly amiable Palestinian terrorist the Phantom. The opening generates some good, over-the-top sight gags as it parodies chase scenes in Bourne and Bond movies, but once Zohan arrives in New York, the film is far more concerned with his having sex with old ladies (a regular Sandler fixation) than with spying. I'm actually kind of afraid of what the "extended and unrated" DVD might add, but usually that's just a publicity gimmick that doesn't add much at all. Still, the DVD is loaded with special features, and completists might want to Netflick it for the opening, at least.