A course in chaos theory really won’t help

The Butterfly Effect

Ashton Kutcher, Eric Stoltz

New Line, $28

New Line tries to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear with its special edition of this psychological thriller, in which Ashton Kutcher plays a college student who can go back in time. But no amount of documentaries or commentaries can hide that the film is a big fat turkey.

The DVD features a documentary on chaos theory; a look at time traveling in movies; a behind-the-scenes documentary in which writer-directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, the stars and producers discuss the film as if it were as rich and complex as “Citizen Kane”; a trivia fact track; and commentary from Bress and Gruber.

*

The Lower Depths

Jean Gabin, Toshiro Mifune

Criterion, $40

A real feast for cinephiles. This double-disc set features two versions of Maxim Gorky’s drama about the denizens of a slum: Jean Renoir’s romantic 1936 adaptation and Akira Kurosawa’s comedic 1957 take.

The great French actor Jean Gabin teams up with Renoir for the first time as a thief who loves the downtrodden sister-in-law of his money-grubbing landlord. Louis Jouvet, another legend of French cinema, also excels as a baron who has lost all of his money because of a gambling addiction.

Kurosawa has set his “Lower Depths” in a Japanese slum during the Edo period of the late 19th century. Kurosawa envisioned Gorky’s drama as a comedy, so the actors play it for laughs.

The set includes an introduction by Renoir to his film and, in the Kurosawa version, compelling commentary from scholar Donald Richie and an excerpt from a TV series on Kurosawa.

*

Monsieur Ibrahim

Omar Sharif, Pierre Boulanger

Columbia TriStar, $30

After a five-year absence from the big screen, Egyptian actor Omar Sharif returned to features in 2003 in this pleasant French coming-of-age tale. Though he’s now 70, Sharif still possesses the charm and big brown eyes that made female hearts flutter in the 1960s in such films as “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Doctor Zhivago” and “Funny Girl.” The actor supplies the captivating commentary on the film in which he discusses such topics as why he took the movie; his young talented co-star Pierre Boulanger; and how he lost his virginity in Paris at 15.

*

Wonder Woman -- The Complete First Season

Lynda Carter, Lyle Waggoner

Warner Home Video, $40

This set contains the 90-minute pilot and the first 13 episodes of the 1976-77 series based on the popular comic strip about a warrior princess who helps America fight the Nazis during World War II. The series, which made a star out of Lynda Carter, is campy fun that has held up well. And Charlie Fox’s infectious theme song is a blast.

The three discs include a fast-paced documentary on the series, with new interviews with Carter and producer Douglas S. Cramer as well as commentary from the two on the pilot episode.