Friday the 13th
As exciting as it is to have the original Friday the 13th on Blu Ray, it still looks like a 30-year-old film. You can see the grain in the film stock, but they do bring up the colors. Camp shirts shine like the oily teenage faces wearing them. Yellows and reds pop out of the dark forest of Camp Crystal Lake.
There is a sharpness that I haven’t seen in Friday the 13th before. It lets you se every drop of townie drool. There’s no outrageous scenery despite the forest lake setting, although everything holds up in the dark light, as Blu Ray is great at preserving minimal lighting. It’s a respectable restoration job.
It takes a rain soaked red painted door to really look like a Blu Ray. The fun thing is you can totally tell that the fake skin on all the kill scenes is not the same color as the actual skin. Back then, that’s probably all they needed to read on film. Now it looks campers have gray necks to get slashed.
Bourne Trilogy
Most trilogies or movie series show noticeable differences in quality between films, as the years in between represent significant differences in film and transfer quality. Even though The Bourne Identity goes back to 2002, and we have seen more recent Blu Rays look worse, the entire trilogy maintains a consistent, spectacular Blu Ray look.
Crisp clarity is vital to Bourne so that you can see every nuance of efficient movement he uses. There’s plenty of detail to see and most of it holds up even in the speediest of pursuits.
Most of the color schemes are cool blues and greens for eastern Europe and industrial complexes. Of course Supremacy’s South American section is totally saturated with green foliage and red-gold earth. Even scenes with limited lighting sources come through completely with subtle grades of shadow.
An amazing fete is that action scenes look consistent across the trilogy. Fight scenes from Identity look just like Ultimatum. Car chases from all three look like they come from the same time and place. It really makes a continuum of story, even though six years and two different directors exist between them. If anything, Identity looks a little better since it doesn’t have the artificial grit of Paul Greengrass’s shaky cam, but it’s consistent within the artistic visions.
Chocolate
Thai movies are the new Hong Kong Cinema, only now you can see all their crazy moves in high quality Blu Ray, not bootlegs of tattered old films. From the director of Ong Bak, Chocolate has all the grace and brutality of Tony Jaa (the character is inspired by him in the film) and looks fantastic.
You’ll see all the gritty details of the slums of Thailand, particularly the factories and warehouses where the criminal confrontations occur. Even better, the lighting scheme paints each scene with distinct hues, sometimes golden, sometime aqua, yet always with exquisite detail.
The actors’ faces appear haunting with tragic expression in their close-up detail. That also means when the bad guys get smashed viciously, all of that intensity is equally visceral. Seeing a little girl knee and elbow dudes in the head is awesome enough. Seeing it in this quality is a gift.
Clerks II
Kevin Smith said that putting Clerks I on Blu Ray would be a complete waste of the technology. The opening footage of Clerks II suggests otherwise. It is grainy black and white like the original but it has a nice clarity within all the grain. If they can get Clerks I looking like that, it’ll be worth upgrading.
Actually, after that, the rest of the movie looks kind of generic. I mean, it’s a full color Blu Ray with popping reds and yellows, certainly those Mooby fluorescents. But it looks like every other movie on Blu Ray. At least the grainy film school black and white was unique.
There’s still a little grit. Even with the yellow and purple paint job, the wall where Jay and Silent Bob hang out shows off al the brick grit and spray paint fuzz. Close-ups of the Mooby computer station show all the foam plastic cracks and dents so that’s cool. You’ll still see a little bit of film grain inside the store. It looks like a movie, just polished up for digital hi-def. And Kevin’s wife looks so hot in full Blu Ray quality, and in a movie with Rosario Dawson starring, that’s saying a lot. Way to go, Kev.
W
The story of George W. Bush spans many decades and locations, so there are a few different HD looks. The White House scenes are crisp and blue. Outdoor scenes on Bush’s ranch are a bit more saturated and colorful, with some grain, like it’s supposed to be the fantasy land where Bush is the ultimate leader. Bush I’s term is a little redder than the present, but maybe I’m just reading too much into my HD.
The makeup still holds up. Thandie Newton looks like Condoleeza Rice with her puffy lip and plastered hair. It remains subtle so Josh Brolin conveys W with his physicality, but HD represents the detail so you still buy it. And there are plenty of fat, sweaty politicians glistening in pinpointed beads of perspiration.
The Midnight Meat Train
This “gritty” horror film has an intentionally grainy look. Or maybe they just didn’t spend that much on the transfer since they were dumping it anyway. I’ll go with artistic effect. Subway scenes are a cool blue grain while above ground, you get washed out apartments and warehouses.
There are still plenty of detail in terrified faces, blood spattering around and squishy body parts oozing out of their rightful places on the body. Each area has a distinct lighting effect, obviously the cold metallic subway, the red darkroom, and other tonal effects. The grain is sometimes distracting but if that’s the way they decided to go, this is the most high detail grainy Blu Ray they could have made.
Hulk Vs
If you’re looking for animated comic book action, this is some fine looking art. Hulk Vs. Thor and Hulk Vs. Wolverine look like the comic book panels, or the Saturday Morning Cartoon designs where applicable, but the colors are super vibrant in HD. They are solid with slightly darkened shadow.
Not every color is the hottest hue possible. They make artistic choices with natural and subdued colors, coming to life when most appropriate. Hulk is actually not the greenest green of all the greens in the frame. He’s more of a living green.
Backgrounds have interesting shadings and design, from the forests and mountains where Wolverine faces Hulk, the industrial lab where evil scientists experiment, godly temples and golden armor of Thor’s world. Either you can see the brush strokes, or they’ve added brush strokes to make it look that detailed.
The animation is a little choppy and hi-def emphasizes where frames are missing to save time or money. Some of the landscapes and characters are just so gorgeous in the daylight or snow, it’s worth sacrificing the flow of their motion if the frames themselves are going to shine like that.
The Rock Collection
Of the three films Dwayne Johnson made for Universal, the one of note is really The Rundown. We reviewed The Scorpion King as part of the Mummy collection, and we’ll give mention to Doom, but come on, are you really going to watch either of those again?
The Rundown, set in the jungle, looks beautiful. All the colors are heightened for Blu Ray so the greens are tropical and aquatic. You can see every detail of dirt cakes onto rugged vehicles, every grain of dirt road, every ripple of river water. From harsh daylight to pitch black night, the film preserves clarity and offers highlights in any corners they choose to focus.
Now Doom, the movie set all in dark corridors. The Blu Ray does a good job keeping the dark aesthetic. They haven’t attempted to brighten it up, and because Blu Ray can show detail even in dark lights, this movie is oddly ideal for a demo. Actually, there are some scenes that are still too dark, but that’s the movie. You can see the detail painted into the set to make it look worn and ravaged. All the gory bodies and the monsters look exquisitely nasty, when it’s bright enough to see them. The FPS sequence looks like the game brought to life with even more clarity, so there’s a good demo sequence.
Street Fighter
I always had a soft spot for the cheesy Street Fighter movie. It was totally stupid but Van Damme did it with such gusto, I just got into it. Ming-Na was totally hot as Chun Li and they even did a freeze frame jump at the end. The Blu Ray won’t win over any converts though, and it may lose those who hung in there because it looks like it was just bumped up from a video tape.
The picture is kind of shaky and even the credits look a little blurry. Gunfire and explosions make things look hazy. Actual scenes look all right. They’re able to get things clear and sharp so you can see all the glistening sweaty bodies and the color and detail of the elaborate sets and costumes. Scenes are about half and half, some totally grainy, others pumped up into total clarity. Of course, whether or not you endure any of this is inversely proportional to the intensity of your nostalgia.
Office Space
For a movie set in offices and suburbia, Office Space looks pretty good on Blu Ray. It is a 10 year old film and looks like a film more than a portal into another world, but it’s a well preserved film, not really grainy. It has a consistent look from traffic to cubicles to Peter’s apartment.
You can see fun details like the standard office carpeting cubicle walls, fabric of boring office shirts, Milton’s bleary facial rash. Focus racks between Peter and his backgrounds so the details shift. The TGI Fridays-esque restaurants offer the bursts of color in the film. Really an impressive look for a film that doesn’t rely on visuals.
Napoleon Dynamite
Now, can an indie darling look great on Blu Ray? Yes. It may be a tad grainy at times but you can see all the detail: cracks in the school bus seats, the fake wood pattern in the cafeteria tables, divots in the sand dunes. The pastel colors shine with locker doors, T-shirts and school paraphernalia, the orange van.
Light is harsh overall as everything seems overlit yet everything just barely holds up without getting washed out. I mean, it’s a drab film but it looks exquisitely drab on Blu Ray. The fields of dead brown grass, the small town homes decorated with hand me down furniture. It’s ugly but it’s so clearly ugly, I love it.
Stargate: The Ark of Truth
I don’t know how Stargate looks in HD on TV, but the straight to video movie looks fantastic. They open on mountain landscapes that could come from a James Cameron movie. Okay, a Renny Harlin movie but still it compares with all the theatrical releases, even when they get into interiors like the command center and space ships, and outer space itself with model ships flying around.
Desert temple sets look a little more grainy but that could be an effect of the red tint. You can still see a bit of detail in the foam rubble and sand. The cheesy visual effects call attention to themselves and makeup looks kind of pressed on, but that’s the movie itself. The Blu Ray of it is just showing off what’s there.
Miracle at St. Anna
As the first Spike Lee joint I’ve seen on Blu Ray, perhaps Miracle at St. Anna can be an indicator of how the classics might look. Of course, this was shot last year so was easy to bump up to HD, but it’s got enough Spike Lee staples that we can see those spinning camera shots can still hold all the detail of the frame.
The saturated, grainy Spike Lee footage still holds up. It washes out the nature a little, but you can see all the detail in close-ups of characters, their battle worn uniforms and scruffy faces. There are plenty of wilderness war zones and stony villages to show off Blu Ray detail, even if it is tinted slightly colorless and fuzzy. It’s artistic effect, and hopefully offers a hint at the Spike Lee catalog to come.
Saw V
With a new director at the helm, Saw V presents a slightly different aesthetic on Blu Ray than the previous four. Saw I was gritty because it was a bare bones indie. The three Darren Lynn Bousman films mimicked that aesthetic and held up with improved HD presentations.
Saw V opens with a higher clarity than the others, and more color. The bright yellow door shines out of a grimy industrial setting. Even the flesh tones of the first victims stand out with reddish hue. Even the green warehouse scenes look a bit more pristine and vibrant. Certainly the nasty detail within those scenes holds up in green light.
Scenes outside the green game there are a few naturally lit scenes that look like normal colors. Not many though. You’ve got bluish scenes of police investigations and grey flashbacks to Jigsaw in his prime. It still looks like Saw for sure, but it is the newest evolution of Saw.
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Darren Lynn Bousman’s first non-Saw film looks way better on Blu Ray than it did in theaters. On film it just looked like a Saw film. On Blu Ray, with the clarity enhanced, you can at least see that he was going for a slightly different aesthetic, more comic book-y than real world horror.
The hand drawn or CGI parts look the best obviously. The filmed stuff still has the limits of actual sets to deal with. But it all combines for a consistent surreal effect. The washed out sections look like deliberate lighting halos to enhance certain characters. On film it really just looked like bad lighting.
Seeing the details of all those weird sets is nice too. The lighting is certainly such that Blu Ray can exemplify everything within the frame, whether in shadow or spotlight. Colored scenes look like live-action cartoons with those reds and blues and outrageous gory action going on. Perhaps this can still be a cult hit for the hi-def age.
Max Payne
Since all Max Payne had going for it were visuals, you can expect those visuals to look stunning on Blu Ray. It’s a brand new film so you can imagine they kept the HD transfer in mind the whole time. Everything is sharp and clear with gritty detail in city streets and dingy criminal hideouts.
Snow flakes look like they might blow into your living room. It totally looks like the rendered loop of a game environment. There’s a surreal distance between foreground and background that contributes to the game-like appearance too. The perspective they play with gets enhanced in HD.
When the action explodes, every piece of debris remains clear. Fiery shots and explosions, hints of reds and blue sprays add color to the mainly nourish colorscape.
