|
|
 |
Armageddon
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Touchstone Pictures Review written by and copyright: Pat Pilon & Noor Razzak (18th May 2010). |
|
The Film
 "In space, no one can hear you groan". The reaction you had to that line is the likely the reaction you'll have to this movie. I don't blame Michael Bay for this movie, oh no. I blame "The Right Stuff" (1983). Without that movie, this movie wouldn't be the same. The plot goes thusly, as if you don't already know: an asteroid will hit Earth, so a bunch of oil drillers who don't seem capable of getting their pants on in the morning are trained and go up to space in the hope to stop the big thing from destroying Earth and all of mankind as we know it. Just to get it out of the way. This is the original "Theatrical Cut" version of the film. There's a "Director's Cut" version (previously release by The Criterion Collection), but I personally can't tell the difference between the two. Apparently the difference is only some 2 minutes, so I'm guessing it's just bits and pieces of things blowing up or some such nonsense. Bay, in his commentary (from that Criterion release, sadly not included on this Blu-ray release), says the scene between Bruce Willis and his father is put back in, but I'm sure there's more things blowing up as well. Bottom line you won't really miss anything. First impressions first, there's a few silly things said throughout the film: Billy Bob Thornton's character, Dan Truman, says that the asteroid is "a global killer" and that "everything would die, even bacteria." Ha! I'd bet my copy of "The Killer" (1989) Criterion Collection DVD that cockroaches would survive. They can live through anything! Okay, so that's not a real problem, but look at this: Same character says: "Come on, we need something realistic here." in reaction to some of the ideas the NASA crew have about how to deal with this problem, Yes, let's send a group of drillers onto a rock the size of Texas and blow it up from the inside with one tiny nuclear bomb... very realistic. Same character then goes onto say: "This is as real as it gets." in regards to the situation they find themselves, really? Aren't you confusing this movie with "The Core" (2003)? Same character, again, says: "The president classified this news as top secret." Ah, yes, because no other country in the world knows about the meteorites hitting the Earth from Finland to South Carolina. No other place in the world has any kind of telescope, and no other place in the world has any indication that the world has been pelted by big rocks from outer space. I'm sure the people in Shanghai get bombarded by SUV-sized boulders from space every day, right? Dialogue aside there are plot points to look at: The smartest guy in the world can figure out what happens if an asteroid hits the earth, but he and his team can't figure out diagrams for a rotor drill? Ben Affleck also points this out in the aforementioned omitted commentary. He seems to have had a lot of fun asking Michael Bay about the logical flaws of the movie. Another plot point: These guys have twelve days to train? twelve days? Boot camp for some war movies takes longer than that. How can you train anybody to do anything in twelve days? There's goes your reality... again. Fun physics: A 22,000-mile-an-hour crash landing is a 22,000-mile-an-hour crash landing. I don't care how friggin' big your airbag is, you're not gonna find yourself with a headache the next morning. You're not gonna find much of anything in the morning considering you'll be knocking on St-Peter's door. After saying all that, I still give the movie a (slightly) positive review. Hey, it's fun. Hollywood movies are amusing and Michael Bay makes expensive and largely amusing movies. The action scenes are very well done. They're big and the special effects are incredible (for the time, effects are come leaps and bounds since, but I admire Bay's use of practical effects). I certainly hope they are, considering the budget the movie had. The editing ups the tension really well and for a 151 minute movie it doesn't lag too often. If you don't think about the dialogue or the lack of logic, this movie is actually kind of exciting. Michael Bay shot this movie, there's no doubt about that. If you're actually unsure, just look at the scene with Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler on the Apollo 1 launching pad. Then compare it to the scene in "The Rock" (1996) when Sean Connery encounters Claire Forlani after the San Francisco car chase scene. If you see a difference maybe you should see an optometrist. The pans and whips movements and angles are interesting and stylish and are all Bay staples, which can get tiring at times but mostly keeps things exciting. Like I said before, every so often in his movies, Mr. Bay comes up with interesting camerawork, so it's fun to watch for that. There's action and there'r comedy as well, some lines are pure fun, the best line in the whole movie undoubtably goes to Steve Buscemi whose reply to William Fichtner's question as to why he knows where they are, he simply replies with "Because I'm a genius". He's the comic relief, but Peter Stomarre is the best character. He plays pretty much the exact same character as he did in "Bad Boys" (1995) and "Bad Boys II" (2003) but is an astronaut instead of a mob boss. All the other actors, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Michael Clarke Duncan, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson and a bunch of others do the best with the script and direction they have. The last thing I'll say is that, I originally saw the movie in theatres and I was desperately waiting for Chantal Kreviazuk's rendition of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" to play. All the other songs on the soundtrack played during the movie. I was a huge fan of hers ever since her first song played on radio and TV (I still am)) and I was really happy to see she had a song in a big Hollywood movie. Finally, when the song did play, she didn't sing it; it was the part of the movie and the actors were singing it. I was waiting for something good I knew would come along, but it wasn't what I wanted and all I ended up saying was, ah crap. Come to think of it, that's kind of the reaction most people have to the movie.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 this film comes to HD for the first time with a 1080p 24/fps transfer mastered with AVC MPEG-4 compression and given the majority of a 50GB disc to breath. The only thing I have to compare this to is the long ancient Criterion Collection DVD which is non-anamorphic, so that's not really a fair comparison. Regardless the image is leaps and bounds ahead of that release, the immediate impressions are that colors are brighter and bolder, textures, detail, depth and crispness are all improved in this transfer. While there are some softness here and there and mostly with the special effects, some backgrounds appear a bit flat the overall result of fairly good. Colors are well rendered considering the varied color palettes of this film, blacks are bold, some grain is present however can seem blocky at times. The grand scope and spectacle of this film is nicely preserved within this HD image and it looks better than it has on any format, despite some of its minor flaws.
Audio
Three audio tracks are presented here in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as well as French Dolby Digital 5.1 and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround tracks. For the purpose of this review I chose to view the film with its DTS-HD track. If I could sum this audio track in one word it's got to be "BOOM!" the visuals are solid, the audio track is reference quality. Much like other Bay movies the film is immersive with booming audio, action scenes that feel real and live as if right in your living room, with a complex and rich mix utilizing every channel. The depth and range are excellent, creating a dynamic mix that tumbles you about and leaves you feeling exhausted. The score blasts throughout the sound space, the dialogue is clear, the ambient sounds are natural, the directional effects and effective... bottom line this is a fantastic audio track. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish.
Extras
Buena Vista has released this film on HD for the first time with a scant collection of extras, it's a shame the extras produced for the Criterion DVD were not ported over, cause despite what you may think of the film, like it or hate it, the DVD was well produced and featured some excellent supplements. Sadly they don't make the transition, so if you own the Criterion DVD you might still want to hold onto it. What we do get is a music video, a teaser trailer, a theatrical trailer and a collection of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" is a music video by Areosmith and runs for 4 minutes 58 seconds. I remember this song playing so many times on the radio and TV when the movie came out. Everybody I knew was so sick of it. It's a nice song, though... and here you can watch the video for it over and over and over again... The disc also features the film's original teaser trailer that runs for 3 minutes 11 seconds and the film's theatrical trailer that runs for 2 minutes 33 seconds. Rounding out the extras package are a collection of bonus trailers for: - "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" runs for 2 minutes 33 seconds. - "When in Rome" runs for 1 minutes 22 seconds. - "Surrogates" runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. - "The Sorceror's Apprentice" runs for 2 minutes 32 seconds. - "Disney Blu-ray" spot runs for 1 minute 2 seconds.
Overall
|
|||||
|