Short Circuits: "MacGruber" is out on DVD

New and noteworthy experiences among DVDs, video games, gadgets and the Web.

Another 'SNL' film flops "Saturday Night Live" cast member Will Forte brings his crime-fighting character to the silver screen in "MacGruber" -- and takes full advantage of an R rating. At the start, we find our hero in a hide-out after the villainous Dieter blew up MacGruber's wife on their wedding day. Now, Dieter is in possession of a nuclear warhead, and the Pentagon wants MacGruber to go after him. Hungry for revenge, he agrees. After MacGruber accidentally blows up his team, he's dismissed from the case, but persuades a Pentagon newbie to reinstate him. The two join up with Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) in a bumbling chase after Dieter, the warhead, sweet vengeance, love and sex in a graveyard. It's a little bit funny -- until it's not. The DVD and Blu-ray (Universal, $30-$40) include commentary, deleted scenes and a gag reel.

WASHINGTON POST

Out Tuesday: "Chuck" (Season 3), "Criminal Minds" (Season 5), "The Guardian" (Season 2), "Killers," "The Office" (Season 6), "Smallville" (Season 9), "Solitary Man," "Supernatural" (Season 5), and Blu-rays of "In Cold Blood," "Stardust," "THX 1138," "Tommy."

'Shank' you very much Everything about "Shank" ($15 download for Xbox 360, PS3; rated Mature) has been done before and will be done again, but maybe no game has put it all together and made it look this easy to do so. Like "Metal Slug," "Shank" is a cartoony side-scroller that outfits players with some guns, a few grenades and a jump button. But "Shank" also borrows the melee combat of "Devil May Cry" and, like that game, lets players mix the two styles on the ground, in the air and in whatever combination they please. It is by no means an easy game, and some of the tougher enemies and bosses have cheap attacks in their bag. But the game's rich arsenal of abilities is outclassed only by its ability to tuck everything into a dead-simple control scheme that turns even middling players into supermen.

MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE

Torch doesn't light it up With Android phones taking the largest market share of smart phones, Blackberry needs a blockbuster to retake its throne. Unfortunately, the Torch (carrier AT&T; $100 with two-year contract at Amazon.com; $200 elsewhere) isn't it. The Torch does feel great in your hand. The slide mechanism to reveal the physical keyboard is smooth and sturdy. And, consistent with Blackberry's lineage, the keyboard is incredible. With this and an all-new touchscreen interface, navigating the phone is a breeze. The most welcome addition is a more full-featured Web browser. There's still no support for Flash, though, and overall browsing felt sluggish compared with other smart phones. The Torch also has a universal message center that pools all of your updates from e-mail, Facebook and more. That sounds convenient, but even as e-mail messages are acknowledged, read and deleted on the Web, the notifications remain in the message center just as if they were never read on the phone. It's a strange flaw. The Torch will serve as a welcome upgrade for existing Blackberry users, but those who want more will have to keep looking.

Making e-mail smarter Gmail has begun to roll out an interesting feature that might change e-mail as we know it. It's called Priority Inbox and, in typical Google style, it's so intuitive that you'll wonder why e-mail hasn't always worked this way. Using your reading behavior as a guide, Gmail prioritizes your e-mail and ranks the messages that it predicts will be most important to you. It sounds intrusive, but Gmail is just following your lead. It knows which e-mails you read, which e-mails you reply to, which you simply delete without acknowledging. Using that information, it learns which e-mails you'll want to see at the top of your inbox. If Google gets it wrong, you can vote an e-mail up or down, and it learns that, too. Google made a video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nt3gE9dGHQ) to show off the feature, which has already begun to show up in in-boxes.

DETROIT FREE PRESS