Aside from a present-day framing device, the story is set during the Great Depression. Hanks heads up a generally good-hearted band of prison guards who are determined to bring a sense of peace to their charges’ last days (the green mile is their name for death row). Then giant John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) arrives — convicted for the murder of two little girls — and “The Green Mile” heads off into Rod Serling territory. Coffey, like a certain biblical figure also with the initials J.C., has a gift for healing, and soon relieves Hanks of a decidedly painful urinary infection. Hanks seeks to return the favor by attempting to learn whether Coffey is truly guilty. “The Green Mile” strives for a happy ending, but at best can muster only a strange note of cheerful melancholy.

Director Frank Darabont, who did well by King with his version of “The Shawshank Redemption,” offers no commentary on the DVD, so the viewer can only guess about his technical achievements this time around. Darabont notes in a brief behind-the-scenes documentary on the disc that “The Green Mile” “didn’t have the fur, and the fangs, and the haunted cars, but it had this rich world that it presented.” Unfortunately, he takes such a leisurely approach to the material that the second half of the film crawls slower than a life sentence. The focus shifts so frequently between Coffey, Hanks, the other inmates and the warden’s ailing wife that it’s hard to recall the main strand of the plot.

And this, undoubtedly, was just fine with King, who has made no secret of his dissatisfaction with Hollywood’s past treatment of his work. The novel version of “The Green Mile” also covered a lot of ground, but it had the luxury of a much larger canvas. King is a skillful yet sloppy storyteller, and Darabont should have known better than to try to remain absolutely faithful to the original material. On the other hand, when an author of King’s stature tells you that your script is “the best film adaptation that I have read, hands down,” what are you going to do?

Hello?

This is not a film that was crying out for a remake; the 1974 original directed by H.B. Halicki wasn’t exactly a milestone in cinema history (although it did have the distinction of totaling about 90 vehicles). In the new version, Memphis Raines (Cage) comes out of car-theft retirement when a not-very-menacing gangster threatens to do in his inept younger brother (Giovanni Ribisi). To get Little Bro off the hook, Raines must deliver 50 stolen cars to the Long Beach port in a single night. With the help of a lovable crew of felons, he does.

“A great car movie, a great chase movie, hasn’t been around,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer says on the DVD. “So it’s time to do one.” The clock’s still ticking on that score. “Gone in 60 Seconds” has all the Bruckheimer hallmarks — it’s loud, it doesn’t dwell on characterization and never lets plot get in the way of action sequences — but this one is utterly lacking in the popcorn appeal of such other offerings as “Armageddon” and “Con Air.” That “Gone” features only a single chase scene is an astounding misstep. What, did the filmmakers think too many car chases would distract from the metaphorical exploration of spiritual redemption through grand theft auto?

The DVD includes no fewer than three behind-the-scenes featurettes about “The Big Chase,” plus lots of stuff about how the stars took special driving classes to appear convincing on the road. In an interview segment, Bruckheimer waxes lyrical about his producing skills: “It’s been said my pictures have grossed about $11 billion, which means what I’m doing people like, and that’s what I do it for. I do it to entertain people.” The interview includes scenes from most of Bruckheimer’s movies, including the yet-to-be-released “Pearl Harbor,” but not a single glimpse of “Gone in 60 Seconds.”

Maybe they didn’t want to steal any thunder from the DVD’s “Action Overload” extra — a music-video-style mish-mash of random scenes from “Gone” set to a thumping heavy-metal score. There’s no story, no characters. Just noisy, in-your-face pyrotechnics. It’s the perfect Bruckheimer film, in other words.

Luckily, the bulk of the Wayans brood — Damon must have been busy — didn’t have to bother themselves with matters of plot and characterization in concocting this film; the objects of their mirth didn’t have much going on in these departments either. It helps if viewers have seen the originals to fully appreciate the layers of ridicule in “Scary Movie,” but it’s not necessary. Most of the gags are self-explanatory and are about as challenging as a Three Stooges short (though not nearly as funny).

The DVD lacks a commentary from one or all of the Wayans, but this isn’t much of a loss. What could they do — explain the pains they took to craft a fart noise worthy of Carmen Electra’s posterior? Instead, the disc, like many recent DVDs, features “additional scenes” that are in reality “some stuff swept up from the cutting-room floor that wasn’t good enough for the original release.” In this case, the scenes include an unfunny sex bit involving Marlon Wayans, a willing partner and a pair of guns, and some slapstick with Cheri Oteri that may constitute the most offensive treatment of a disabled person in a mainstream film. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

A making-of featurette for the most part consists of director Keenen Ivory Wayans and his two siblings enthusing about the need to mock the teen-slasher genre — something the “Scream” films already did fairly effectively — and why their offering is different. “Scream” was an “unfunny spoof,” Marlon explains, while Keenen notes that “Scary Movie” is “a spoof of a satire.” Oh. Put it like that, it almost sounds clever.

Ed Harris heads the mining team down about 2,000 feet below the surface. A U.S. sub crashes nearby, and Harris’ crew is dispatched on a rescue mission, accompanied by his estranged wife (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and a handful of badass Navy SEALs. So far so good. But when Harris goes over the side of a seemingly endless undersea chasm in search of the sub’s lost nuke, “The Abyss” turns, weirdly, into “Close Encounters.” Suddenly we’re meeting friendly underwater aliens and receiving preachy lessons about loving one another. You pretty much expect everyone to break out in a chorus of “Kumbaya” before the credits finally put a stop to the silliness. What could Cameron have been thinking?

We find out on the two-disc DVD. Along with the slimmed-down theatrical version of the film, there is a “special edition” version containing 28 extra minutes of footage that tell the story the way the director originally envisioned. It’s not exactly an improvement; someone should have told Cameron to can the cuddly ETs before filming ever began.

Most of the extra scenes simply bring more depth to the characters. The two main additions are a computer-graphic tidal wave that the aliens use to send a little message to mankind (no one gets wet) and an extended scene in which the benevolent space critters communicate with Harris. Mankind gets the point. We all live happily ever after.

It would have been nice if Cameron had provided audio commentary for one of his most important films. Instead, “The Abyss: Special Edition” offers text commentary in the form of subtitles — like “Pop-Up Video” but more distracting. Much better is the one-hour documentary, “Under Pressure: Making the Abyss,” that follows the production from its start to soggy finish. “We realized from the beginning it was going to be difficult,” says producer Gale Anne Hurd. “What we didn’t realize is that it was going to be impossible in the sense that we never really got things under control.”

Shot in an abandoned nuclear power plant, the movie required the cast and crew to remain submerged for as long as 12 hours at a stretch, exposing everyone to chlorine burns and all manner of stress. The chasm sequence — it was actually shot sideways — was so difficult for Harris that he broke down in tears. “I really thought I was going to die,” he says. Mastrantonio actually stormed off the set one day when the camera ran out of film in the middle of a difficult scene. And then the makeshift tank holding millions of gallons of water started falling apart.

“Welcome to my nightmare,” Cameron told the cast on the first day of production. He was right — “The Abyss” was a genuinely horrific experience. But the result, warts and all, is unlike any other film ever made. The DVD, with its sharp picture and excellent sound, brings the movie’s many elements into focus and provides a much-needed guide to Cameron’s original concept. The special-edition set is almost too much of good thing — the behind-the-scenes features are so plentiful they’re nearly impossible to navigate — but what else would you expect for a movie with this title?

The setup moves quickly enough. A commercial spacecraft runs into trouble when it crosses paths with a rogue comet, forcing it to crash-land on a three-sunned desert planet. The handful of survivors must cope with their inhospitable new surroundings as well as with the sudden disappearance of the fugitive murderer, played by Vin Diesel, as he is being transported back to interplanetary prison.

Unexpectedly, director David Twohy then chooses to slow things down, allowing the characters to develop and for the suspense to build gradually. The look and feel of the movie takes on a surprisingly indie tone, as if Twohy is signaling that there’s more going on than meets the eye, and that the predicament of the characters, as opposed to slam-bang special effects, is going to propel the plot. Even when decidedly carnivorous creatures turn up, they seem (at first) like just another obstacle to be overcome.

That changes. The big twist arrives when we learn that the lights go out on this planet every 22 years as all three suns simultaneously go into eclipse. And when that happens, the monsters in the dark come pouring from their hidy-holes and, naturally, all hell breaks loose. So much for slow-moving indie atmospherics. Once the planet goes dark, “Pitch Black” switches into high gear and the story becomes simple and familiar: The good guys must race to safety before they all get eaten. There’s some pretty good eye candy as the monster attacks grow in ferocity, but everyone you think will survive does; everyone else is kibble.

Diesel, who seemed more dangerous as a screw-the-clients stockbroker in “The Boiler Room,” acquits himself well enough as the heel with a heart of gold. Physically, he has sufficient presence to make his escaped con a menace to those around him. But his transformation from serial killer to savior is seen coming a mile off, thus depriving the story of yet one more element of suspense.

The DVD has two separate audio commentaries — an alarming and unnecessary trend among recent releases. Do the studios really think viewers want to sit through the entire movie several times to get all the goodies? One track features Diesel, costar Cole Hauser and director Twohy, and it seldom rises above the usual passing observations about how much they all loved this or that scene. The second track, with Twohy again, producer Tom Engelman and visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang, is more informative, but contains little that will flesh out the overall viewing experience.

The best inside dope comes as Twohy explains one of the more difficult effects on a shot-by-shot basis. In the sequence, Diesel is fighting hand-to-hand with one of the creatures, and the effect is created by rapidly alternating use of a puppet with use of computer graphics. “Back and forth, back and forth, very quickly,” Twohy notes. “Good example of how you can do it, if you do it right.” In this case, he nailed it. Too bad the rest of the movie just missed.