Garnering laughs

13 Going on 30

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Wishing that she were older, a girl (Christa B. Allen) goes to sleep one day at age 13 and wakes up … as 30-year-old Jennifer Garner! There’s not much about this teen fantasy that’s original, from the switching bodies theme to the notion that second chances can help us learn the lessons we missed the first time around. Yet the difference is, one, the fact that director Gary Winick (working from a group-written script) is able to have a sad and happy ending at once; two, the fact that the central role is played by Garner. Most known for her action role in the ongoing television series “Alias,” Garner already has proven that she can do roundhouse kicks. And here she proves that she can make us laugh. Forget “Daredevil,” the film in which she co-starred with Ben Affleck (a sure career killer). This is the real Garner, a 21st century Julia Roberts. (DVD, VHS; 1:38; rated PG-13 for sexual content, brief drug references)

Knight Rider: Season One

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Depending on how you view camp, this 1982 first season of the television series may be notable for little more than introducing David Hasselhoff. Actually, Hasselhoff had been a cast member on the 1973 season of “The Young and the Restless,” and he played a character named Boner in 1977’s “Revenge of the Cheerleader.” But he became a star as Michael Knight, the crime fighter whose big weapon was a customized Pontiac Trans-Am named KITT (for Knight Industries Two Thousand), a sleek black ride whose artificial intelligence was given a voice by William Daniels (“St. Elsewhere”). It was a pretty dumb idea for a series, but the concept was good enough to work for 84 episodes (until 1986). The pilot episode includes Hasselhoff, later of “Baywatch” fame, doing a commentary. (DVD only; 22 episodes; $59.98)

Hidalgo

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Joe Johnston makes an epic tale out of this based-on-a-true-story study of a cowpoke and his horse. Our hero (Viggo Mortensen) is stuck between cultures (his mom was Sioux, his father a soldier) and has two talents: winning cross-country races and diving into liquor bottles. As a means of redemption, he enters a race across the Arabian Peninsula. Besides Mortensen, the movie’s best qualities are its visuals and its overriding theme of a man incapable of avoiding destiny. Yet lines such as, “Why is it Cowboy, that I feel as if only you truly see me?” are likely to leave you stuck in the sand. (DVD, VHS; 2:16; rated PG-13 for adventure violence, some mild innuendo)