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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 2-disc Special Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James Teitelbaum & Noor Razzak (21st December 2008). |
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The Film
 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) may be a perfect movie. It's got action, romance, humor, and an incredible cast of memorable characters. The writing, direction, editing, music, and performances are all practically flawless. It is tightly paced, it makes sense, and it is just fun to watch. "Raiders" is a fantastic adventure story that captures the energy and exuberance of youth, but which never feels juvenile. Although the movie is a pean to the pulpy childhoods of director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas, the film never panders to its audience, and is never condescending. It is truly a film for adult children, or the child within adults everywhere. Unfortunately, Spielberg (and to a greater degree his partner George Lucas), has never been able to recapture this magic. The two 1980's sequels were both entertaining. Both had a long list of strong points, but neither felt quite as solid as the original. More importantly, both had moments that stretched the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point - considerably more so than the original. Physics are rather malleable in the "Indiana Jones" films, and it goes without saying that a belief in the supernatural is mandatory for viewers willing to accept the situations that Jones finds himself in. However, things like three people bailing out of out of an airplane in a rubber dinghy (as in 1984's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom") can truly test the limits of what the average film goer is willing to swallow. In the long-awaited fourth film, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", these limits are tested more so than ever before, as Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) walks away from a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator, and then goes on to discover little green saucer men from another dimension. I could handle shankara stones and even the holy grail, as seen in previous films, but "Crystal Skull" reaches the acceptible boundaries of the metaphysical and supernatural, as defined in the previous films, and then disposes with these implied limitations entirely. This is not the biggest problem with this moderately entertaining film, however. The real issue at hand here is that Spielberg and Lucas seem to be going through the motions, without having really made as much of an effort as they needed to. The computer generated special effects are nowhere near up to the standards that we all know Lucas's company Industrial Light and Magic is capable of; even things like background matte paintings look obvious and sloppy. Speaking of sloppy, the script is a mess, and Spielberg's direction completely fails to inject any sense of urgency or tension to Dr. Jones' latest quest. The story seems like nothing so much as an excuse to string some action set pieces together: the wareghouse chase, the college chase, the jungle chase, and then another "temple of doom". Through all of this, I never felt like Jones was in danger, and I never really felt that anyone in prticular would be better (or worse) off if the titular crystal skull was (or wasn't) returned to its proper resting place. The feeling I got while watching "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is that if movies were rock and roll bands, I may as well have been watching an "Indiana Jones" tribute band, as opposed to the real thing. Or perhaps one of those bands from 1972 that only have one original member left, but who still tour the county fair circuit, wheeling out their three crusty old hits for aging baby-boomers. All of the surface elements for an "Indiana Jones" adventure are in place: the whip, the South American jungle, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy being afraid of a snake, the hat, the sidekick, the betrayal, the red line on a map, the creepy-crawlies... but the essential soul of the original trilogy seems missing. That said, this film is more of a success than the infantile de-evolution of George Lucas' own "Star Wars" films (1977-2005), and I think that Harrison Ford probably had a lot to do with that. There are cutesy moments in the film -- to wit: three (count 'em) gags based on gophers in the first reel alone, and Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) going all "Tarzan" on us -- but it seems like the steady hand of Ford is what keeps his bosses from going too far off base, and completely ruining this film. He's the spark here, and he's the magnetism that makes "Indiana Jones" worth coming back for, even if just barely so in this reduced incarnation.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.40:1 this image is delivered to fans in high-definition 1080p 24/fps and has been mastered in AVC MPEG-4 compression and is (I believe) the first Blu-ray disc that holds THX certification for optimal viewing. I saw this film a couple of time theatrically, both film presentations and digital presentations. Having seen both formats theatrically I was more impressed with the digital projection as the film version seemed to show the flaws in effects and didn't look as punchy. This Blu-ray displays the film much in the same way the digital projection looked. There were some noises made about sloppy effects (primarily blue screen composits that looked bad, or were flat etc.) It wasn't ILM's strongest film in terms of effects as they seemed rushed. The HD transfer does show these flaws (just look at the jungle scenes where Shia swings through the vines for a good example of this). I was happy with the overall 'look' however, as it's very much in keeping with the previous films and the image's sharpness, colors and detail all help to reach that goal. Skin tones are natural, blacks are bold, and there's no compression related problems, no dirt, specks or anything that might be considered a blemish on this image.
Audio
Three audio tracks are featured on this disc in English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as well as tracks in French Dolby Digital 5.1 and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its TrueHD track. If it's anything Lucasfilm knows how to do it's mix a terrific audio track. This track blasts through the speakers like a giant rock rolling towards you! The dialogue is clean and free of distortion, the ambient sounds adds further layers to the mix immersing the viewer in each and every exotic location while the score lifts you to new heights as it soars through the sound space. The action scenes virtually explode off the screen and feature aggressive and dynamic sounds that encapsulate you. It's a magnificent track that will sweep you off your feet. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Extras
Paramount has released this film as a 2-disc set with a documentary, a series of featurettes, pre-visualization sequences, galleries and a series of theatrical trailers as well as an interactive feature. Below is a closer look at these supplements broken down per disc. DISC ONE: The first thing you'll find on this disc is the "Indiana Jones timelines" an interactive feature that allows you to cycle through a timeline that covers the story, thr production and also the history. This is a cool feature that provides soe excellent trivia for fans. I thought I'd be able to review this portion quickly, but I ended up spending over an hour reading through all the cool bits of information on display here. "The Return of a Legend" featurette runs for 17 minutes 36 seconds; Spielberg discusses how Harrison Ford convinced both him and Lucas to produce another "Indiana Jones" film. Ford, Lucas, Frank Marshall, and others chime in too. The evolution of the script is discussed as well. "Pre-Production" featurette runs for 11 minutes 47 seconds; is about the storyboards and previsualization of the film. The previs was rather elaborate, and the viewer gets to see a lot of the fairly detailed 3-D animation used in developing the story. After that, the recreation of the iconic Indiana Jones costume is discussed. There's two trailers, there's theatrical trailer 2 which runs for 1 minute 48 seconds and theatrical trailer 3 which runs for 1 minute 51 seconds. DISC TWO: This disc contains a pretty solid collection of documentaries and production featurettes that total well over two hours. "Production Diary: The Making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" runs for 1 hour 20 minutes 10 seconds and is a six-part documentary on the making of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". The majority of the doc is made up of on-set footage, which is blended with interviews with cast and crew members. The costume people stunt people, set designers, and special effects people all took some time out of their schedules on set to explain what they do and how they do it. This collection of production material is of a bit higher quality than is normally seen. The production of "Crystal Skull" was quite an undertaking, and this look at the sets - most of which were practical, not computer generated - is often fascinating. "Warrior Makeup" featurette runs for 5 minutes 37 seconds; is a short clip on the process of making up the jungle warrior characters. "The Crystal Skulls" featurette runs for 10 minutes 12 seconds; The prop guys talk about how the crystal skulls and the alien skeletons were made. "Iconic Props" featurette runs for 10 minutes 3 seconds; Props like the swords, Oxley's cryptic letter, and the Conquistador mummies are discussed. "The Effects of Indy" featurette runs for 22 minutes 44 seconds; a fairly detailed look at the computer generated special effects. Filmed plates are compared to the CG-enhanced versions. Digital artists explain what we are seeing, and how it was done. "Adventures in Post-Production" featurette runs for 12 minutes 46 seconds; The editing, sound effects, and music are discussed. Key players and long-term members of the "Indiana Jones" team such as Burtt and Williams talk about their contributions. "Closing: Team Indy" featurette runs for 3 minutes 44 seconds; Spielberg wraps up the featurettes with a shout-out to everyone who helped make the film. Basically, the movie credits with faces attached. DVD credits follow. Pre-visualization sequences includes three scenes from the film are shown as digitally animated mock ups: - "Area 51 Escape" runs for 3 minutes 54 seconds. - "Jungle Chase" runs for 5 minutes 48 seconds. - "Ants Attack" runs for 4 minutes 31 seconds. Galleries feature stills from the production and include: - "The Art Department" which features 171 images. - "The Stan Winston Studio" features 78 images. - "Production Photographs" features 73 images. - "Portraits" features 62 images. - "Behind-the-Scenes Photographs" features 40 images.
Overall
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