Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is maddening in a way. It's a film that has its heart in the right place but fails to engage on primary levels. It has all the ingredients of a great film but manages only to consistently frustrate you with awkward stabs at meaning. This is not to say it's a terrible film, just one that will have to make do with a certain "underachiever" status.

Based on the novel by Chris Fuhrman, Altar Boys follows the misadventures of two best friends, Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin) and Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch), who attend a Catholic school under the tutelage of the severe Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster). Assumpta is a stern, wooden-legged nun who represents everything that stifles the yearning creativity and restless, adolescent enthusiasm of these boys and their friends. Tim and Francis vent their hatred of Sister Assumpta in an elaborate, collaborative graphic novel, teeming with splatter, nudity, and superheroes whose arch nemesis is...well, that's obvious.

But just as the movie begins to revel in revenge scenarios and hilarious comeuppances, it also delves awkwardly into the psychologically damaged and dissatisfied inner lives of the protagonists. Tim wants to emulate the great William Blake in his poetry and drawings, and Francis is falling sweetly in love with the damaged Margie (Jena Malone). The film wants to seriously examine these inner lives, but it also wants to intercut such sequences with gaudy animated sequences (by Todd McFarlane) that represent the boys' graphic scrawlings come to life. There's a strange disconnect between the two aims: sensitive and tragic versus madcap and adolescent.

Altar Boys does contain memorable sequences. The montages of young teens at play have an effective nostalgia. All of Malone's scenes are powerful. The whole best friends/girlfriend tension feels real. But the rest is strangely flat. A primary reason is that the animated sequences are too long and too wrong. However lofty the intentions of the filmmakers with these episodes, they just don't fit. You want them to work, and at first they're amusing, but oh, they leave you wincing, longing for the real movie to continue.

And without giving anything away, the film ends unnecessarily tragically. It seems a last-ditch reach toward significance, but it only feels tacked on. Which is all the more frustrating because the actors are uniformly fine, and all involved seem to have wanted to make a great film. Maybe they just tried too hard.

Columbia TriStar presents The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys in a nice anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 1.85:1 presentation. My memory of seeing this film in theaters was that its colors were muted and the film suffered from a general haze. Those flaws aren't as apparent here, although the film still retains a kind of "low budget" feel. Colors are more accurate, but I wouldn't call them vivid. Detail is more than acceptable, reaching into backgrounds, although in general, the film seems soft. Blacks are deep. I noticed no artifacting and only minor edge halos. The animation sequences fared particularly well, predictably.

You can choose between Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and Dolby 2.0 Stereo. Don't expect a flurry of surround activity in the former track. This is a front-heavy presentation, with only minor envelopment in sound effects and score. Dialog is clear and natural, and the score comes across beautifully.

The primary supplement (accessed under Setup) is the Director/Screenwriter Commentary by Peter Care and Jeff Stockwell. The two have a nice, humorous rapport. It's a breezy commentary that thankfully devotes some time to the adaptation of the book to the screen. Character motivation and actor portrayal are discussed at length. There's lots of "OK, in this scene, we see..." Still, there's much to learn here.

Next is the 30-minute Sundance Channel Anatomy of a Scene documentary. This is a very informative half-hour of behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, and raw footage, mostly focused on one scene: when Tim tries to rescue a dying dog on the side of the road. But, really, this is an examination of the entire film. This is probably the best feature on the DVD.

Next, in Animated Scenes, you can view all of the film's animated sequences, strung together and with optional commentary by Todd McFarlane. This feature works out to about 12 minutes. Very informative, but it still didn't convince me that the animation works in the context of the film.

The Deleted Scenes consist of four or five scenes that are just longer versions of existing scenes. This was a decidedly lackluster experience.

In Illustrations, you can page through some of the drawings used in the film.

The 5-minute Featurette only serves to stress the quality of the Anatomy of a Scene feature.

Interviews uses some of the same footage that the Featurette uses, but it's expanded here. This is about 13 minutes of talking-head footage of the actors. This is a nicely produced series of interviews, and they increased my admiration of Jodie Foster. But you'll wince at some of the things the younger actors say (i.e., "It's really cool!).

Finally, you get the usual Production Notes and Biographies.

The quality of the Altar Boys Theatrical Trailer is disappointing, and the TV Spots are shrug-worthy.

Under Trailers, you'll find trailers for Panic Room, World Traveler, and The Mystic Masseur. Unfortunately, all these trailers are presented in better quality than the one for Altar Boys.

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys coulda been a contender. Alas, it just doesn't quite deliver on its ambitions. Still, this is an admirable DVD package, with above-average video quality, audio quality, and supplements.