By Bruce Dancis
Scripps Howard News Service

Two of filmdom’s most popular and enduring genres — the coming-of-age story and the battle-of-the-sexes romantic/suspense thriller — are on display in this week’s DVD releases of Greg Mottola’s “Adventureland” and Tony Gilroy’s “Duplicity.”

“Adventureland” (Miramax/Buena Vista Home Entertainment, $29.99, rated R) is a funny yet touching story about one young man’s summer job at a rundown amusement park in 1987. James (Jesse Eisenberg) is a recent college grad, a sensitive, literary type who majored in Renaissance Studies and has long-standing plans of taking a trip through Europe before starting graduate school in the fall. But his father’s financial difficulties force James to forego his travels and find a job. His lack of real-world skills or previous employment makes the local Adventureland, with its unsafe rides, unwinnable games and inedible cuisine, his only choice.

While working in an amusement park produces some ludicrous situations for a studious, deep-thinking type like James, he’s not the only fish out of water in such surroundings. The key person James meets at Adventureland is Em (Kirsten Stewart), an enigmatic, intelligent young woman whose shy smile barely conceals the inner turmoil in her life.

“Adventureland” has a few too many predictable jokes about amusement parks — is there anything more obvious than making fun of corn dogs? But at its heart rests the tender and honest romance that blossoms between James and Em.

In “Duplicity” (Universal Studios Home Entertainment, $29.98, rated PG-13), Julia Roberts and Clive Owen bring their exceptional good looks and considerable charm to their roles as government agents who become corporate spies and get involved in an undercover romance.

But the intricate plotting that served Gilroy so well in “Michael Clayton” and in his screenplays for “Proof of Life” and the three “Bourne” thrillers backfires in “Duplicity,” as viewers easily get lost in a maze of double crosses, time shifts and location changes.

The film begins when CIA agent Claire Stenwick (Roberts) meets MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) at a diplomatic party in Dubai. She seduces him, drugs him and then steals some documents in his possession. As the years pass and they both move on to private espionage work, they run into each other professionally and continue their romantic relationship.

Gilroy gives his glamorous stars plenty of opportunity for verbal jousting and sexual tension, in a manner reminiscent of Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in their combative romantic comedies. But the charged repartee between Roberts’ and Owen’s characters grows predictable and tiresome after a while, and the film’s too many plot twists leave a viewer initially confused but eventually indifferent.