Following the events of the first Hunger Games film, this sequel finds Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) back in her home District but her actions have inspired humanity to fight back, something she witnesses during her victor's tour but hearts on fire carry strong desires and rage deep within where no pain (No Pain) can be found.
I went into Catching Fire with very mixed expectations as I was not a huge fan of the first film in the series but an attractive preview plus my own adoration of Jennifer Lawrence pushed me over the edge to go and give this film a look despite being constantly reminded of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film The Running Man.
But those fears are now unfounded in fact as I really enjoyed this 2nd film in the series and would rate it much higher than I would the first one, everything in this movie feels more refined, the world feels less showy as it did in the first film and the actors feel a lot more comfortable in their roles.
The first one I have to mention is Lawrence herself, she is completely captivating this time around even though I thought she was pretty good last time but here she holds your attention the entire time she's on screen and there are times where I just wanted to give her a cuddle and reassure her that it will all be okay, I also thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman was very good as well in his role and I also liked Donald Sutherland who has a much larger role here than he did in the first film though there were times where I couldn't help but think of his role on the Simpsons where he was the curator of the Jebediah Springfield Museum.
I do however have one complaint and that is that the film is a little too long, a good 10-15 minutes could've been cut out of this film and you would not have missed them all that much, I'm getting a little fed up with movies that go to a 2 and a half hour length for no good reason, what is wrong with a big film being 90-130 minutes long, anything beyond that just feels a waste of screen time as far as I'm concerned.
So yeah despite that one quibble I quite liked Catching Fire and would happily recommend it for all Hearts on Fire who might say to themselves "Katniss, KATNISS, KATNISSSSSS" beforehand, 3 out of 5.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Film Review - Waking Sleeping Beauty (2010)
Waking Sleeping Beauty is a documentary made by Don Hahn and Peter Schneider that chronicles the rebirth of Walt Disney Pictures as a viable fighting force in animated movies once again in the 80's and 90's, movies like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin which became huge hits and changed the face of animated films as people saw them, but the road to success is never an easy one to travel.
As someone who loves going to animated movies at the cinema, I absolutely adored this documentary, it has a fantastic array of archival footage (the doco plays out in the exact same way the Senna documentary did in that it only has the voices of the participants and the footage from the time playing over it) as well as a wide array of people who worked there during that period from Hahn and Schneider to former chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to veteran directors John Musker and Ron Clements and down to the animators like Glen Keane.
Each and everyone involved has a fascinating story to tell and the doco also shows that while the films on the outside were enormously successful with theme park rides, huge ticket sales, glowing reviews from critics (Siskel and Ebert's reviews show up a couple of times) and high awards prestige, the inside story was anything but with the tragedy of losing Howard Ashman to AIDS, the fighting between the executives over the credit of their success and the eventual disintegration that led to the near 20 years of failure until 2010's Tangled signalled a new age of success for Disney once again.
There is however one complaint I have and that is I wished the doco had covered more of the production on Aladdin which would've made the doco about 10 minutes longer as Mermaid, Beauty and the Lion King are covered pretty well but Aladdin only gets a bit of a look in, I have no doubt that this is to do with what happened regarding Robin Williams and the deal that was made for him to voice the Genie and what happened afterwards, a bit of a shame but understandable at the same time.
But apart from that very minor quibble, this is a fantastic documentary that is a must see for any animation film fan out there or hell just film fans in general, 5 out of 5.
As someone who loves going to animated movies at the cinema, I absolutely adored this documentary, it has a fantastic array of archival footage (the doco plays out in the exact same way the Senna documentary did in that it only has the voices of the participants and the footage from the time playing over it) as well as a wide array of people who worked there during that period from Hahn and Schneider to former chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to veteran directors John Musker and Ron Clements and down to the animators like Glen Keane.
Each and everyone involved has a fascinating story to tell and the doco also shows that while the films on the outside were enormously successful with theme park rides, huge ticket sales, glowing reviews from critics (Siskel and Ebert's reviews show up a couple of times) and high awards prestige, the inside story was anything but with the tragedy of losing Howard Ashman to AIDS, the fighting between the executives over the credit of their success and the eventual disintegration that led to the near 20 years of failure until 2010's Tangled signalled a new age of success for Disney once again.
There is however one complaint I have and that is I wished the doco had covered more of the production on Aladdin which would've made the doco about 10 minutes longer as Mermaid, Beauty and the Lion King are covered pretty well but Aladdin only gets a bit of a look in, I have no doubt that this is to do with what happened regarding Robin Williams and the deal that was made for him to voice the Genie and what happened afterwards, a bit of a shame but understandable at the same time.
But apart from that very minor quibble, this is a fantastic documentary that is a must see for any animation film fan out there or hell just film fans in general, 5 out of 5.
And Now, Why I Adore the CBS/Fox Video Collection
In the last of these remembrances of Australian VHS Brands, I take a look at what is arguably my favorite one of them all.
And that is the CBS/Fox Video Collection.
My fondness for this particular brand like the Village Roadshow brand started from my early years and a copy of "Give my Regards to Broad Street" which starred and was written by Paul McCartney and also starred our own Bryan Brown.
But it actually wasn't the film itself that took my attention it was one of the previews before it that did the job and it was for Return of the Jedi as the preview they used to promote it on their releases was the re release trailer from 1985 that started with the streaks of entering into Hyperspace and as a young child that image stayed with me.
A few years now pass and it's 1995 or thereabouts and I find myself in my Pop's house going through his video collection one afternoon and I found a couple of CBS/Fox tapes in it.
The two tapes he had from the CBS/Fox Video Collection were "Romancing the Stone" and "Revenge of the Nerds" and they grew on me there and then due to the lettering on the front label of the tape as well as the warning label on the top sticker as well as the small engraving of the logo on the top of the tape itself (CBS/Fox releases from that era have them so if you have one be sure to look for it, it's not hard to find.)
Needless to say I thought to myself "I wonder if either of these tapes will have that trailer with the streaks at the start on them" and I put both of them in the machine and sadly it wasn't either of them but the experience of those is still powerfully imprinted in my memory today from the background that looked like tiles you would get for your kitchen floor that had the typed out blue font for the warning at the start to the logo that came bursting onto the screen with the fanfare blaring (which I'm sure scared a few of us as young kids.)
And then came the announcement of "And Now, More Previews from the CBS/Fox Video Collection" and the letters came forging and at first you didn't quite know what they were and then you saw the word "Previews" come flying onto the screen and it was flashed up like it was flashlights in a city somewhere, it felt like an experience plus my Pop's lounge room was the right size to make that experience feel more real to you plus at the end of both of those tapes there was another warning and then a reprise of the logo which reminded you to rewind the tape before returning it to your video library.
A couple of years pass once more and it is 1997 and I was taken to the video shop to hire The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as I had now become a big fan of the Star Wars trilogy and I was really keen to see Jedi again as well as Empire for the first time as I hadn't seen it prior to then and when I opened up the case to Jedi I saw that it looked a lot like the two tapes my Pop had and sadly all I could see was the after film previews as the beginning of the tape was too far damaged to be able to watch and that included the start of the film, it wasn't until I found a copy to keep 11 years later did I learn what previews were in front of it needless to say I was a bit disappointed.
That year also KFC ran a special Johnny Quest promotion with their kids meal and one of the prizes you got was 3 free rentals of Family and Children films from the video shop it was 1 each week, this would become my introduction to the later CBS/Fox releases that the yellow and blue colored spines on them plus the ad for those just before the film started.
But lastly, my last memory of the CBS/Fox Video collection comes from the year 2000 and I find myself in my local video store and I see this image of Kurt Russell almost sticking out in front of me so I take a look at it and it's of Big Trouble in Little China which was one of their releases, needless to say when I got the chance I rented it as well as Mario Party 2 for the N64 and I enjoyed both at the time and 9 years later a copy of the CBS/Fox release of Big Trouble became mine to own.
And so, I wrap up this look back at my favorite VHS brands in Australia, it's been great to be able to share these memories with those that read them as they represent an era of films that I really love and hopefully for any Aussies reading this or any of the others, it brings back some memories of your own.
Please rewind this cassette before returning it to your Video Library.
And that is the CBS/Fox Video Collection.
My fondness for this particular brand like the Village Roadshow brand started from my early years and a copy of "Give my Regards to Broad Street" which starred and was written by Paul McCartney and also starred our own Bryan Brown.
But it actually wasn't the film itself that took my attention it was one of the previews before it that did the job and it was for Return of the Jedi as the preview they used to promote it on their releases was the re release trailer from 1985 that started with the streaks of entering into Hyperspace and as a young child that image stayed with me.
A few years now pass and it's 1995 or thereabouts and I find myself in my Pop's house going through his video collection one afternoon and I found a couple of CBS/Fox tapes in it.
The two tapes he had from the CBS/Fox Video Collection were "Romancing the Stone" and "Revenge of the Nerds" and they grew on me there and then due to the lettering on the front label of the tape as well as the warning label on the top sticker as well as the small engraving of the logo on the top of the tape itself (CBS/Fox releases from that era have them so if you have one be sure to look for it, it's not hard to find.)
Needless to say I thought to myself "I wonder if either of these tapes will have that trailer with the streaks at the start on them" and I put both of them in the machine and sadly it wasn't either of them but the experience of those is still powerfully imprinted in my memory today from the background that looked like tiles you would get for your kitchen floor that had the typed out blue font for the warning at the start to the logo that came bursting onto the screen with the fanfare blaring (which I'm sure scared a few of us as young kids.)
And then came the announcement of "And Now, More Previews from the CBS/Fox Video Collection" and the letters came forging and at first you didn't quite know what they were and then you saw the word "Previews" come flying onto the screen and it was flashed up like it was flashlights in a city somewhere, it felt like an experience plus my Pop's lounge room was the right size to make that experience feel more real to you plus at the end of both of those tapes there was another warning and then a reprise of the logo which reminded you to rewind the tape before returning it to your video library.
A couple of years pass once more and it is 1997 and I was taken to the video shop to hire The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as I had now become a big fan of the Star Wars trilogy and I was really keen to see Jedi again as well as Empire for the first time as I hadn't seen it prior to then and when I opened up the case to Jedi I saw that it looked a lot like the two tapes my Pop had and sadly all I could see was the after film previews as the beginning of the tape was too far damaged to be able to watch and that included the start of the film, it wasn't until I found a copy to keep 11 years later did I learn what previews were in front of it needless to say I was a bit disappointed.
That year also KFC ran a special Johnny Quest promotion with their kids meal and one of the prizes you got was 3 free rentals of Family and Children films from the video shop it was 1 each week, this would become my introduction to the later CBS/Fox releases that the yellow and blue colored spines on them plus the ad for those just before the film started.
But lastly, my last memory of the CBS/Fox Video collection comes from the year 2000 and I find myself in my local video store and I see this image of Kurt Russell almost sticking out in front of me so I take a look at it and it's of Big Trouble in Little China which was one of their releases, needless to say when I got the chance I rented it as well as Mario Party 2 for the N64 and I enjoyed both at the time and 9 years later a copy of the CBS/Fox release of Big Trouble became mine to own.
And so, I wrap up this look back at my favorite VHS brands in Australia, it's been great to be able to share these memories with those that read them as they represent an era of films that I really love and hopefully for any Aussies reading this or any of the others, it brings back some memories of your own.
Please rewind this cassette before returning it to your Video Library.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Film Review - The Counselor (2013)
The Counselor is directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy and the story concerns the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) who proposes to his girlfriend Laura (Penelope Cruz) and who takes a job that could net him 20 million dollars, a job that could also go horribly wrong.
I was intrigued by the Counselor based off the previews I saw for the film as it looked like a dark and exciting film that I could find myself getting into, the addition of Fassbender being in the film had tipped the scales to the point where I decided to go and see the film, did it deliver the goods?
Sadly not as this film for me was a complete and total disaster, how much so, let thee count the ways:
The first reason is that the film's storyline is all over the place, scenes feel like they were pasted together from a longer edit of the film without any of the context to back them up, characterization feels very inconsistent, at times they're plotting and at other times they're sitting around drinking wine and admiring the pet Cheetahs they have and then there's the one scene where it literally feels like Ben Kenobi from Star Wars saying over it "She's had a great Disturbance in the Force, as if one single voice cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced, she fears something terrible has happened."
The second reason is that the actors themselves are a near complete bore to watch, most of the time it just feels like a bunch of A list stars indulging themselves in excess and privilege without any heart attached to it, Cruz is simply wasted in her role, Pitt does very little apart from look handsome in a Texas suit and Hat and Bardem continues his OTT acting from Skyfall.
But the real sin here is the utter waste of Fassbender, one of our finest actors at the moment and not even he can redeem this film as he just comes across as a complete bore and I just sat there thinking "How the fuck can you make Michael Fassbender boring, it just doesn't make any sense" as all he does basically is scowl, cry and recite his lines in a monotone voice, hopefully he reminds us with his next film that he truly is talented and that this is an unfortunate bump in the road of a very stellar career so far.
And the third reason is the horrible attitude the film displays at times, the first of those is the infamous Car scene hinted at in the preview which I just found to be disgusting and the other is the near complete lack of personality in the female characters, each of them are either:
A) Wearing jewellery that is just over sized to the point it looks like they're wearing a miniature jewellery store in their fingers and miniature chandeliers in their ears
B) Wearing clothing and heels that make them look like trophy women who marry only for money and not for love
and C) Just there mainly to act as a plot device and then be cast out when they're no longer needed.
I really thought we were better than this but obviously I was wrong.
There is however one thing I did like about the film and that was Diaz, she basically takes the film and runs away with it with her daring and calculating performance that seems to have found the right tone for the film whereas the other actors do not, thinking they need to be ACT-ING instead so they can be nominated for awards, give me a fucking break.
And so to wrap this up, I was not a fan of the Counselor, it was a mess story wise, boring performance wise and at times just horrible and disgusting, avoid this one at all costs as for me it's one of the year's worst films, 1 out of 5.
I was intrigued by the Counselor based off the previews I saw for the film as it looked like a dark and exciting film that I could find myself getting into, the addition of Fassbender being in the film had tipped the scales to the point where I decided to go and see the film, did it deliver the goods?
Sadly not as this film for me was a complete and total disaster, how much so, let thee count the ways:
The first reason is that the film's storyline is all over the place, scenes feel like they were pasted together from a longer edit of the film without any of the context to back them up, characterization feels very inconsistent, at times they're plotting and at other times they're sitting around drinking wine and admiring the pet Cheetahs they have and then there's the one scene where it literally feels like Ben Kenobi from Star Wars saying over it "She's had a great Disturbance in the Force, as if one single voice cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced, she fears something terrible has happened."
The second reason is that the actors themselves are a near complete bore to watch, most of the time it just feels like a bunch of A list stars indulging themselves in excess and privilege without any heart attached to it, Cruz is simply wasted in her role, Pitt does very little apart from look handsome in a Texas suit and Hat and Bardem continues his OTT acting from Skyfall.
But the real sin here is the utter waste of Fassbender, one of our finest actors at the moment and not even he can redeem this film as he just comes across as a complete bore and I just sat there thinking "How the fuck can you make Michael Fassbender boring, it just doesn't make any sense" as all he does basically is scowl, cry and recite his lines in a monotone voice, hopefully he reminds us with his next film that he truly is talented and that this is an unfortunate bump in the road of a very stellar career so far.
And the third reason is the horrible attitude the film displays at times, the first of those is the infamous Car scene hinted at in the preview which I just found to be disgusting and the other is the near complete lack of personality in the female characters, each of them are either:
A) Wearing jewellery that is just over sized to the point it looks like they're wearing a miniature jewellery store in their fingers and miniature chandeliers in their ears
B) Wearing clothing and heels that make them look like trophy women who marry only for money and not for love
and C) Just there mainly to act as a plot device and then be cast out when they're no longer needed.
I really thought we were better than this but obviously I was wrong.
There is however one thing I did like about the film and that was Diaz, she basically takes the film and runs away with it with her daring and calculating performance that seems to have found the right tone for the film whereas the other actors do not, thinking they need to be ACT-ING instead so they can be nominated for awards, give me a fucking break.
And so to wrap this up, I was not a fan of the Counselor, it was a mess story wise, boring performance wise and at times just horrible and disgusting, avoid this one at all costs as for me it's one of the year's worst films, 1 out of 5.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Film Review - Prisoners (2013)
Prisoners stars Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover, a small time repair man who heads to his neighbour's house to celebrate Thanksgiving when his young daughter and her friend go missing, Keller gets very determined to find her, no matter the cost.
It's hard to know where to begin when talking about this movie as in all honesty, I mainly thought it was just okay, nothing great but nothing all that terrible either, Jackman is sensational in his role and you believe fully his quest to find his lost daughter though at times his scenes where he gets angry made me think of when he was playing Wolverine, Jake Gyllenhall is also very good in his role and is a nice calming counterpoint to Jackman's increasing anger in frustration and I thought Viola Davis was very good as well in her small role.
But the film as a whole felt to me like a well worn path in terms of thrillers, the three key films it reminded me a lot of were River's Edge, Misery and the Silence of the Lambs and those three films I felt were superior to this film as to me the dark tones of Edge, the Abduction theme of Misery and the overall cold look of Lambs sort of began to blend together for me with the twist here being the children being kidnapped instead of the adults.
Those three other films were superior to this film in another way: They're not 2 and a half hours long, each of them is about 90 minutes to 2 hours long and for me Prisoners is simply too long for its own good and could've done with a good 20 minutes chopped from its running time, I'm kind of getting annoyed with films going over the 2 hour and 10 minute mark and while some films like the Place Beyond the Pines justified it, this film does not.
And so to wrap up, while I thought Prisoners was well made and has good performances, it also had an all too familiar feel for me and was simply too long and it's a bit of a shame as I like dark themed movies but this one missed the mark, 2 out of 5.
It's hard to know where to begin when talking about this movie as in all honesty, I mainly thought it was just okay, nothing great but nothing all that terrible either, Jackman is sensational in his role and you believe fully his quest to find his lost daughter though at times his scenes where he gets angry made me think of when he was playing Wolverine, Jake Gyllenhall is also very good in his role and is a nice calming counterpoint to Jackman's increasing anger in frustration and I thought Viola Davis was very good as well in her small role.
But the film as a whole felt to me like a well worn path in terms of thrillers, the three key films it reminded me a lot of were River's Edge, Misery and the Silence of the Lambs and those three films I felt were superior to this film as to me the dark tones of Edge, the Abduction theme of Misery and the overall cold look of Lambs sort of began to blend together for me with the twist here being the children being kidnapped instead of the adults.
Those three other films were superior to this film in another way: They're not 2 and a half hours long, each of them is about 90 minutes to 2 hours long and for me Prisoners is simply too long for its own good and could've done with a good 20 minutes chopped from its running time, I'm kind of getting annoyed with films going over the 2 hour and 10 minute mark and while some films like the Place Beyond the Pines justified it, this film does not.
And so to wrap up, while I thought Prisoners was well made and has good performances, it also had an all too familiar feel for me and was simply too long and it's a bit of a shame as I like dark themed movies but this one missed the mark, 2 out of 5.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Film Review - Thor the Dark World (2013)
A continuation of the Thor film series, this story sees him deal with the Dark Elves lead by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) who vow to take back the universe and cover all the stars in a 2nd darkness but not if the son of Odin can stop him first.
I went into Thor the Dark World with very mixed expectations as I was not a fan of the original Thor film that Kenneth Branagh made and the previews for this new film looked particularly average, did this new film deliver?
Frankly, it did not, there is nothing in this film that I found in any way engaging or interesting, so much of it is just a borefest to watch and I sat there and at times almost fell asleep during it, now I like Chris Hemsworth and I think he's great in Rush but here he just seems to be phoning it in at times, Natalie Portman I didn't really care for nor did I really care for Tom Hiddelston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaimie Alexander or Rene Russo as all of those people as well just didn't pop on screen this time.
Not surprise given that the director of the film Alan Taylor is a TV director from Game of Thrones and is pretty much infusing that style here and it doesn't work, I was also very sad to see Idris Elba be wasted in the manner he was in this movie, it feels like a crime to do this.
But the real sin of this movie is one that I have said before and will say again, it is the villains, the Dark Elves here are weak, probably the weakest villains Marvel have ever put into one of their films and Eccleston is a crushing bore as Malekith, I can't help but wonder if Mads Mikkelsen had been able to do something with this role if he had been able to do it as originally planned though to be frank, I don't blame him at all for bowing out as there's nothing on the page to work with and the overall look of the Dark Elves just look like a cross between Transformers and Lord of the Rings and it too is boring to look at.
There was however one thing I did like and that was Kat Dennings, she seemed to have some fun in her role and it was the only time where I was interested in what was happening in the movie, hopefully she like Elba did with "Pacific Rim" goes onto much better roles in the future.
And so to wrap this up, I did not enjoy Thor the Dark World very much at all, it was for me the weakest of the Marvel films in the Avengers timeline to date, hopefully next year's Captain America follow up The Winter Soldier delivers the goods more than this one did, 1 out of 5.
I went into Thor the Dark World with very mixed expectations as I was not a fan of the original Thor film that Kenneth Branagh made and the previews for this new film looked particularly average, did this new film deliver?
Frankly, it did not, there is nothing in this film that I found in any way engaging or interesting, so much of it is just a borefest to watch and I sat there and at times almost fell asleep during it, now I like Chris Hemsworth and I think he's great in Rush but here he just seems to be phoning it in at times, Natalie Portman I didn't really care for nor did I really care for Tom Hiddelston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaimie Alexander or Rene Russo as all of those people as well just didn't pop on screen this time.
Not surprise given that the director of the film Alan Taylor is a TV director from Game of Thrones and is pretty much infusing that style here and it doesn't work, I was also very sad to see Idris Elba be wasted in the manner he was in this movie, it feels like a crime to do this.
But the real sin of this movie is one that I have said before and will say again, it is the villains, the Dark Elves here are weak, probably the weakest villains Marvel have ever put into one of their films and Eccleston is a crushing bore as Malekith, I can't help but wonder if Mads Mikkelsen had been able to do something with this role if he had been able to do it as originally planned though to be frank, I don't blame him at all for bowing out as there's nothing on the page to work with and the overall look of the Dark Elves just look like a cross between Transformers and Lord of the Rings and it too is boring to look at.
There was however one thing I did like and that was Kat Dennings, she seemed to have some fun in her role and it was the only time where I was interested in what was happening in the movie, hopefully she like Elba did with "Pacific Rim" goes onto much better roles in the future.
And so to wrap this up, I did not enjoy Thor the Dark World very much at all, it was for me the weakest of the Marvel films in the Avengers timeline to date, hopefully next year's Captain America follow up The Winter Soldier delivers the goods more than this one did, 1 out of 5.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Blu-Ray Review - Pacific Rim
The Film:
Released back in July of this year, Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, his personal love letter to the Japanese Monster and Robot movies of his youth concerns the human race at War with the Kaiju (Japanese term for Monster) and their main weapon being the Jaegers (German for Hunter), gigantic robots piloted by two humans but humanity is losing and one last gamble to take out the Rift between the two worlds may be the last chance humanity has to survive.
I adored Pacific Rim when I saw it cinemas back in July, I sat there in my chair smiling, cheering, feeling tense in my chair and watching in awe as these gigantic creatures duked it out, it was a fantastic experience that sadly I was never able to repeat before it left cinemas.
And sadly there were two key reasons this film failed in cinemas:
The first is simply the concept behind the film, Big Monsters vs. Big Robots, a tradition steeped in Japanese cinemas but has rarely if ever caught on in a big way in the West even when Japanese anime shows like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z developed big fan bases in the West in the late 90's and early 2000's but shows along the Big Monsters and Big Robots tradition have not caught on and as a result, the film had difficulty finding an audience.
The other big reason was simply the timing of its release, the film opened in cinemas in mid July and here in Australia that meant right in the middle of the School Holidays where you had films like Man of Steel, The Heat, The Lone Ranger, Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 and Epic and I'm sure for most cinemas they probably thought "I've got more than enough films to show and with it being the holidays the kids films have to take precedence."
And that was something I saw for myself waiting in line to see this movie, almost everyone else behind me was waiting for Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University to start, frankly I kept thinking to myself afterwards "If only it had been delayed to the 25th of July" then it's only real competition would've been "The Wolverine" and it may have done much better at the local box office.
But that's all hypothetical as it did not happen and like John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China in 1986/87, it may have failed to find an audience in cinemas but it certainly found one on Video and I have no doubt Pacific Rim will find its audience on disc.
The Video:
To sum it up: Spectacular.
And that is no joke dear readers, the video quality on this disc is truly some of the best I've ever seen on Blu-Ray and there have been a few I've liked quite a bit but this may well take the cake from those titles.
The clarity, the colors, the detail all pop here and there isn't as much as a speck out of line here, especially during the many night scenes where it's raining and big fights are going on, all of those scenes are clear as crystal and it also highlights the many details Guillermo put into the film with his mechanized sets and corrugated iron of the Jaegers to the cartoonish look of the Kaiju and even then you don't think to yourself your watching a digital creation, truly terrific stuff.
The Audio:
Presented in both 5.1 and 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (each is its own track) I pretty much have to echo my own comments about the video quality and say the same thing here.
Unlike a lot of Blu-Ray sound mixes where you have to adjust the volume every 5 minutes, the 5.1 mix finds a very even balance between the fight scenes and the quieter moments where you can keep it at a consistent volume, sit back and enjoy yourself.
And boy oh boy will these mixes do that for you, every sound has been recreated perfectly and is really nicely spaced so that you can close your eyes and focus on the sound of the rain at night or the gears of the Jaegers or the sound of the weapons firing or even the sound of the monsters screaming, it's a terrific sound mix.
As for the 7.1 mix well to my mind it's a little quieter and not as good as the 5.1 mix but you shouldn't be too disappointed with it if you decide to go with that mix (the 5.1 mix is the default mix on the disc so you'll have to select the 7.1 mix manually)
The Extras:
Guillermo Del Toro has long created extensive special edition discs for his movies and had a big hand in their creation and that is the case here as while there isn't a lot of extras, what is here is of a very high quality and more than deserving of a high rating.
With that out of the way, let's dive in shall we:
Audio Commentary by Guillermo Del Toro: Talking almost nonstop and in considerable detail, this is a fantastic commentary track that takes you through almost everything you could ever want to know about the making of the film and the creation of both the monsters and robots, if you're a fan of this film make the time to give this track a listen.
Focus Point Featurettes: 13 Focus Point Featurettes round out the extras on this first disc and combined run just over an hour, they delve into a wide range of topics from the creation of the sets (large sets were created to give you the feeling of being inside the head of the Jaegers), the casting of the Rangers (which includes a very cool clip of Idris Elba saying his famous line at the table read), some Set Visits as well as a look at the creation of the musical score (Russian lyrics were written for the reveal of their Jaeger) and more.
Unlike a lot of these Focus Point featurettes that Warner Home Video make, these ones are actually of a pretty high quality and you get a sense while watching them that your really seeing Guillermo's thought process as he's planning the film and as he's shooting it, a very cool feeling that sadly is becoming more and more rare on Blu-Ray releases these days as big special edition releases are cast aside in favor of streaming extras and retailer exclusives that just end up pleasing no one.
That's all for the first disc but before I tell you about the second disc I have to make mention that anytime you stop the film and take the disc out, the next time you put it back in your machine an option will come up allowing you to resume where you left off, a very nice touch.
Now then, onto disc 2.
The second disc (with Striker Eureka on the disc art, Gypsy Danger is on the feature disc) is full of high quality extras that delve deeper into the experience and combined with the commentary and featurettes on the first disc, help to make for a very nice package.
The first extra here is "The Director's Notebook": An interactive feature containing a reproduction of Guillermo Del Toro's notebook during his planning stage for the film.
Inside you will find sketches and text notes as well as icons that will translate part of the Spanish text as well as give you access to some very cool art galleries (one of which contains propaganda posters) as well as some further video featurettes that are extremely cool (my favorite of which concerns a temple carved out of the remains of a Kaiju head the interior of which couldn't be shot due to budget constraints).
Again what was cool about this feature was taking you inside Guillermo's planning process and how he went about creating the world the film exists in, this kind of detail is just remarkable I think and it makes this feature absolutely worth checking out.
Next comes a couple of featurettes:
The first of these is called "The Drift Space", a 5 and a half minute featurette that breaks down the film's drift sequences so more back-story about the characters can be told, a very cool feature that reveals some neat stuff about the history but it's doubtful you will watch this featurette more than once but hey I'm glad it's here.
The other is easily the better of the two and that is "The Digital Artistry of Pacific Rim", a 17 minute featurette about the creation of the film's digital effects of which there were many and the way in which Guillermo helped supervise their creation.
This was a really cool featurette as it shows Guillermo hard at work directing the effects supervisors as if he was directing his actors on the sets, the fight sequences and overall digital effects work in this film was nothing short of amazing, arguably the best CGI I've ever seen created for a feature film and Guillermo's eye for detail is a large part of that and it was very nice to see how it was created here.
From there we go to what could arguably be my favorite extra on this entire set and that is "The Shatterdome."
What is inside the Shatterdome, well what is here is a big collection of art galleries ranging from the Kaiju, the Jaegers and down to the costumes and environments as well as housing a few animatic sequences for some of the big scenes in the film.
The artwork that Guillermo and his team created for the film is nothing short of amazing and it really shows you not only the scope and size of the film that he had in mind for it but also in the case of the Jaegers it shows you the various details of just how these big machines work, all the various nooks and crannies that connect it together and it really makes you believe that these robots have a functionality to them and aren't just a walking talking scrap heap like in the recent Transformers movies.
I loved going through this section and it is absolutely worth the time to do so.
Next comes a small selection of deleted scenes which total about 4 minutes, these are primarily character based moments and are of nice value but I can see why Guillermo cut them.
And sadly this is the only area of the disc set where I have any real gripe to make as Guillermo was quoted in interviews saying that he had cut about 30 minutes in total out of the film and that all of it would be on the Blu-Ray release, sadly that hasn't happened here and it's a real shame as without that, the set feels incomplete.
And lastly we get a small blooper reel containing the standard stuff blooper reel extras have so there's not much to see here and it's doubtful you'll watch this extra more than once.
The Verdict:
Pacific Rim gets first class treatment on Blu-Ray and for me it's one of my favorite releases on the format so far for the film is terrific, the Audio and Visual quality is of the highest grade and the extras are genuinely insightful despite the disappointment about the deleted scenes.
If you are a fan of this film, do not hesitate to pick it up when you get the chance, you won't be disappointed.
Released back in July of this year, Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, his personal love letter to the Japanese Monster and Robot movies of his youth concerns the human race at War with the Kaiju (Japanese term for Monster) and their main weapon being the Jaegers (German for Hunter), gigantic robots piloted by two humans but humanity is losing and one last gamble to take out the Rift between the two worlds may be the last chance humanity has to survive.
I adored Pacific Rim when I saw it cinemas back in July, I sat there in my chair smiling, cheering, feeling tense in my chair and watching in awe as these gigantic creatures duked it out, it was a fantastic experience that sadly I was never able to repeat before it left cinemas.
And sadly there were two key reasons this film failed in cinemas:
The first is simply the concept behind the film, Big Monsters vs. Big Robots, a tradition steeped in Japanese cinemas but has rarely if ever caught on in a big way in the West even when Japanese anime shows like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z developed big fan bases in the West in the late 90's and early 2000's but shows along the Big Monsters and Big Robots tradition have not caught on and as a result, the film had difficulty finding an audience.
The other big reason was simply the timing of its release, the film opened in cinemas in mid July and here in Australia that meant right in the middle of the School Holidays where you had films like Man of Steel, The Heat, The Lone Ranger, Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 and Epic and I'm sure for most cinemas they probably thought "I've got more than enough films to show and with it being the holidays the kids films have to take precedence."
And that was something I saw for myself waiting in line to see this movie, almost everyone else behind me was waiting for Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University to start, frankly I kept thinking to myself afterwards "If only it had been delayed to the 25th of July" then it's only real competition would've been "The Wolverine" and it may have done much better at the local box office.
But that's all hypothetical as it did not happen and like John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China in 1986/87, it may have failed to find an audience in cinemas but it certainly found one on Video and I have no doubt Pacific Rim will find its audience on disc.
The Video:
To sum it up: Spectacular.
And that is no joke dear readers, the video quality on this disc is truly some of the best I've ever seen on Blu-Ray and there have been a few I've liked quite a bit but this may well take the cake from those titles.
The clarity, the colors, the detail all pop here and there isn't as much as a speck out of line here, especially during the many night scenes where it's raining and big fights are going on, all of those scenes are clear as crystal and it also highlights the many details Guillermo put into the film with his mechanized sets and corrugated iron of the Jaegers to the cartoonish look of the Kaiju and even then you don't think to yourself your watching a digital creation, truly terrific stuff.
The Audio:
Presented in both 5.1 and 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (each is its own track) I pretty much have to echo my own comments about the video quality and say the same thing here.
Unlike a lot of Blu-Ray sound mixes where you have to adjust the volume every 5 minutes, the 5.1 mix finds a very even balance between the fight scenes and the quieter moments where you can keep it at a consistent volume, sit back and enjoy yourself.
And boy oh boy will these mixes do that for you, every sound has been recreated perfectly and is really nicely spaced so that you can close your eyes and focus on the sound of the rain at night or the gears of the Jaegers or the sound of the weapons firing or even the sound of the monsters screaming, it's a terrific sound mix.
As for the 7.1 mix well to my mind it's a little quieter and not as good as the 5.1 mix but you shouldn't be too disappointed with it if you decide to go with that mix (the 5.1 mix is the default mix on the disc so you'll have to select the 7.1 mix manually)
The Extras:
Guillermo Del Toro has long created extensive special edition discs for his movies and had a big hand in their creation and that is the case here as while there isn't a lot of extras, what is here is of a very high quality and more than deserving of a high rating.
With that out of the way, let's dive in shall we:
Audio Commentary by Guillermo Del Toro: Talking almost nonstop and in considerable detail, this is a fantastic commentary track that takes you through almost everything you could ever want to know about the making of the film and the creation of both the monsters and robots, if you're a fan of this film make the time to give this track a listen.
Focus Point Featurettes: 13 Focus Point Featurettes round out the extras on this first disc and combined run just over an hour, they delve into a wide range of topics from the creation of the sets (large sets were created to give you the feeling of being inside the head of the Jaegers), the casting of the Rangers (which includes a very cool clip of Idris Elba saying his famous line at the table read), some Set Visits as well as a look at the creation of the musical score (Russian lyrics were written for the reveal of their Jaeger) and more.
Unlike a lot of these Focus Point featurettes that Warner Home Video make, these ones are actually of a pretty high quality and you get a sense while watching them that your really seeing Guillermo's thought process as he's planning the film and as he's shooting it, a very cool feeling that sadly is becoming more and more rare on Blu-Ray releases these days as big special edition releases are cast aside in favor of streaming extras and retailer exclusives that just end up pleasing no one.
That's all for the first disc but before I tell you about the second disc I have to make mention that anytime you stop the film and take the disc out, the next time you put it back in your machine an option will come up allowing you to resume where you left off, a very nice touch.
Now then, onto disc 2.
The second disc (with Striker Eureka on the disc art, Gypsy Danger is on the feature disc) is full of high quality extras that delve deeper into the experience and combined with the commentary and featurettes on the first disc, help to make for a very nice package.
The first extra here is "The Director's Notebook": An interactive feature containing a reproduction of Guillermo Del Toro's notebook during his planning stage for the film.
Inside you will find sketches and text notes as well as icons that will translate part of the Spanish text as well as give you access to some very cool art galleries (one of which contains propaganda posters) as well as some further video featurettes that are extremely cool (my favorite of which concerns a temple carved out of the remains of a Kaiju head the interior of which couldn't be shot due to budget constraints).
Again what was cool about this feature was taking you inside Guillermo's planning process and how he went about creating the world the film exists in, this kind of detail is just remarkable I think and it makes this feature absolutely worth checking out.
Next comes a couple of featurettes:
The first of these is called "The Drift Space", a 5 and a half minute featurette that breaks down the film's drift sequences so more back-story about the characters can be told, a very cool feature that reveals some neat stuff about the history but it's doubtful you will watch this featurette more than once but hey I'm glad it's here.
The other is easily the better of the two and that is "The Digital Artistry of Pacific Rim", a 17 minute featurette about the creation of the film's digital effects of which there were many and the way in which Guillermo helped supervise their creation.
This was a really cool featurette as it shows Guillermo hard at work directing the effects supervisors as if he was directing his actors on the sets, the fight sequences and overall digital effects work in this film was nothing short of amazing, arguably the best CGI I've ever seen created for a feature film and Guillermo's eye for detail is a large part of that and it was very nice to see how it was created here.
From there we go to what could arguably be my favorite extra on this entire set and that is "The Shatterdome."
What is inside the Shatterdome, well what is here is a big collection of art galleries ranging from the Kaiju, the Jaegers and down to the costumes and environments as well as housing a few animatic sequences for some of the big scenes in the film.
The artwork that Guillermo and his team created for the film is nothing short of amazing and it really shows you not only the scope and size of the film that he had in mind for it but also in the case of the Jaegers it shows you the various details of just how these big machines work, all the various nooks and crannies that connect it together and it really makes you believe that these robots have a functionality to them and aren't just a walking talking scrap heap like in the recent Transformers movies.
I loved going through this section and it is absolutely worth the time to do so.
Next comes a small selection of deleted scenes which total about 4 minutes, these are primarily character based moments and are of nice value but I can see why Guillermo cut them.
And sadly this is the only area of the disc set where I have any real gripe to make as Guillermo was quoted in interviews saying that he had cut about 30 minutes in total out of the film and that all of it would be on the Blu-Ray release, sadly that hasn't happened here and it's a real shame as without that, the set feels incomplete.
And lastly we get a small blooper reel containing the standard stuff blooper reel extras have so there's not much to see here and it's doubtful you'll watch this extra more than once.
The Verdict:
Pacific Rim gets first class treatment on Blu-Ray and for me it's one of my favorite releases on the format so far for the film is terrific, the Audio and Visual quality is of the highest grade and the extras are genuinely insightful despite the disappointment about the deleted scenes.
If you are a fan of this film, do not hesitate to pick it up when you get the chance, you won't be disappointed.
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