No, you can't play DVD straight from disc - The Wii U Optical drive is unique and can't read anything else but Wii U and Wii discs. Even old music CDs won't play.
The only way you can play DVDs, CDs and Gamecube games is if you rip them and load them from a USB HDD - However having said that, it may be possible to try out an external USB DVD drive to load movies from but that's too much of a hassle as chances are, you already have a device that can do that.