As a matter of fact, it mostly does, once one can get past how horribly so much of the movie has dated. Check out Jane Fonda's larger-than-life hair and Michael Douglas' hippie tresses, mountain-man beard, and flairs. Not to mention the big behemoth cars—gas-guzzlers used to be so flat compared to our condominium-on-wheels SUVs of today. And the film gets off to a shaky start with the theme song that runs over the opening credits, Stephen Bishop's "Somewhere in Between," a banal soft-rock ditty that symbolizes everything that was wrong about the polyester '70s.

And yet, once Bishop's obnoxious warbling ceases and the drama gets underway, The China Syndrome proves it still has the power to thrill, at least until its final act, when the suspense melts into bad melodrama and a closing speech put in the mouth of actor Wilford Brimley that fairly defines the term "heavy-handed." But that's the end. At the beginning, there's Fonda as Kimberly Wells, the "girl" on a happy-talk L.A. news show. Her normal beat is the soft, human-interest story, stuff like tiger parties at the zoo or fish veterinarians who make house calls. But she's allowed to spread her wings a little when she's assigned a special report on energy.

Not that the special is exactly hard news. The segment on the Ventana nuke plant, for example, starts off as little more than industry P.R. But Kimberly and her freelance crew—cameraman Richard (Douglas) and soundman Hector (Daniel Valdez)—just happen to be on site when alarm bells go off. As they watch (and Richard surreptitiously films), engineer Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) and his crew in the control room go into apparent panic mode. The event only last a few minutes, but is enough for Kimberly to realize that she has stumbled onto a huge story.

At the same time that nuclear flacks are inveigling Kimberly's bosses not to run her story, Godell is fighting his own battle with the utility, CG&E.; He is convinced that the incident was no minor hiccup and might presage a disaster if the plant is not shut down and inspected. But hearings are underway as the company seeks approval to build an identical plant farther up the coast and they are anxious that nothing derail their expansion plans. If the event was indeed a near "China Syndrome"—industry slang for a meltdown—as Godell suspects, then it's time to cover up, not fix the problem.

What begins as a near parody of TV news (Kimberly's station could serve as the basis for the recent Will Ferrell comedy, Anchorman) slowly evolves into a crackerjack thriller as the forces of the energy establishment align themselves against Kimberly's crew and, more ominously, against Jack Godell. The China Syndrome was made a few years after whistle-blowing nuclear plant worker Karen Silkwood died behind the wheel of her car and it was widely assumed that her death was no accident, but a murder to shut her up once and for all. This film is steeped in just that kind of paranoia and its best moments make for an unnerving meditation on the lengths the powerful will go to in their all-consuming drive to protect their interests.

The new DVD edition upgrades the previous one with the addition of a 5.1 soundtrack option to go along with the original mono option. Unlike the previous disc, which offered both widescreen and full-screen versions on either side of the DVD, this edition comes only in widescreen (1.85:1), enhanced for 16x9 TVs.

Three short deleted scenes are another new features, but the big additions to the new edition of China Syndrome are two brand-new half-hour documentaries, "Fusion of Talent" and "Creating a Controversy." With participation from Douglas (who was the film's producer as well as a co-star), Fonda, a handful of the supporting actors, and the film's director, the late Jim Bridges' life partner Jack Larson (TV's one-time Superman sidekick, Jimmy Olsen), the two featurettes chart the evolution of the film. Originally slated to co-star Richard Dreyfuss in the Fonda role, this was one movie that underwent a lot of changes. But that's not always a bad thing, and the proof is in the movie itself, which is still, after 25 years, a mostly riveting, thoughtful piece of entertainment.