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The Movie:
In the past couple of years, there have been a number of thrillers either religious ("Stigmata") or involving children ("The 6th Sense") - "Bless The Child" attempts to find the success of both genres by combining the two, unfortunately, it succeeds only occasionally in being mildly creepy - but when it falls, it falls completely flat.
This is dissapointing coming from a director who has had two fine films previously. Chuck Russell turned Jim Carrey into a cartoon in "The Mask" and made one of the slicker, more entertaining Schwartzenegger films in "Eraser". With "Bless The Child", he is simply working with a less-than-adequate screenplay that doesn't develop the characters or the story that well. The film stars Kim Basinger as Maggie O'Connor, a nurse who has just had her homeless younger sister drop off her newborn baby and run off. She raises the young girl, Cody, and soon enough, it becomes apparent that Cody has certain powers - she can move things, light candles, and do other tricks that come in handy.
Elsewhere, a cult lead by Eric Stark (Rufus Sewell, previously excellent in "Dark City") believes that Cody is the one that will help him lead the battle in "evil against good"; nothing particularly new there, nor does "Bless the Child" really offer that much new as it finally gets going after a slow set-up. The movie relies mostly on chase scenes, and much of the special effects are less-than-impressive, especially coming from the team that did the award-winning effects for "What Dreams May Come", which still remains, in my opinion, some of the best effects I've seen in recent years.
Dialogue is so-so at best; it's never good when I find myself predicting what the actors are going to say next and often finding my predictions accurate. The performers, unfortunately, do little to help the limited characters. Basinger turns in a rather flat performance that doesn't remind of her excellent effort in "L.A. Confidential". Jimmy Smits does decent work as the officer who befriends Maggie and helps her in her quest.
Strangely, "Bless The Child" remains one of those films where, as bad as it sometimes gets, I found it at least still somewhat watchable in the way that, although I wasn't entertained, I was still curious about what was going to happen next, unlike last year's similar "End Of Days", which was consistently irritating. This film is simply an unfortunate mis-step for those involved - a horror/thriller that's not particularly thrilling or engaging in any way.
The DVD
VIDEO: Paramount has been steadily improving in terms of image quality. Although I've reviewed a great deal of discs from the studio, I can easily say that this is their most impressive effort that I've seen. The end result is a consist, gorgeous, crisp image that does full justice to the elegant cinematography of Peter Menzies, Jr ("General's Daughter"). Sharpness and detail here are both first-rate, with even the darkest scenes looking wonderfully well-defined.
There are few, if any, flaws with the image. Lack of pixelation or shimmering make for a natural, clean picture that is very enjoyable to watch; there's even a nice depth to the image. Print flaws also don't get in the way, as the print used remains crystal clear, with hardly a speckle.
Colors are also impressive, from the bright colors of the objects in the schoolroom to the warm colors in Maggie's apartment; in general, colors look bright and bold, with no flaws to be seen. Paramount has done impressive work with "Bless The Child", certainly I hope to see this level of quality from the studio in the future.
SOUND: "Bless The Child" presented a pretty unremarkable Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation; for the most part, the sound remained from the front with little surround use. Christopher Young ("Rounders")'s score is fairly standard "thriller" stuff, but it does sound strong, coming through crisply and sounding fairly enveloping. Surrounds begin to come into play more consistently as the film gets more intense in it's last 35 minutes, but I still found the audio to not really assist me in becoming any more engaged in this film. Lastly, dialogue is clear and easily understood.
MENUS:: Menus are non-animated, with very basic images serving as backgrounds.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Chuck Russell and effects supervisor Joel Hynek. Although I didn't particularly like the movie, I looked foward to hearing from Russell again after a commentary on "The Mask" that was a good deal of fun and also, quite informative. Both are largely successful here in providing an interesting discussion of how the movie was filmed, with Russell doing most of the talking and Hynek occasionally coming in to add some details or discuss some of the film's effects-work.
Most of the discussion remains fairly relaxed and low-key, but still remains engaging and enjoyable as Russell's opinions on filmmaking provide a good deal of interesting tidbits; at one point, he even chats about the rise in spiritual films that came about last year. Thankfully, I found there to be only a limited amount of the two simply talking about what's going on in story or silence on the track.
Interviews: A series of interviews with the director and cast that are mainly promotional, talking about the story or working with the other actors. There's not a great deal of interesting facts or tidbits about the making of the film that come out in the interviews as everyone involve remain flatly positive about the production in general.
Also: The theatrical trailer.
Final Thoughts:
Positive: Paramount delivers excellent image quality and at least respectable audio quality, with a couple of enjoyable extra features.
Negative: The movie is a pretty dull affair from begining to end; unless you've seen it and you're already a fan, you may want to skip it. I'm still looking forward to the next film from director Russell, as his previous efforts suggest a good filmmaker who simply went wrong with this picture.
Film Grade
The Film D+
DVD Grades
Video 95/A = (380/400 possible points)
Audio: 89/B+ = (356/400 possible points)
Extras: 83/B = (249/300 possible points)
Menus: 70/C- = (140/200 possible points)
Value: 80/B- = (240/300 possible points)
TOTAL POINTS:1368/1600
DVD GRADE:B/85%
FILM GRADE: * 1/2
DVD GRADE: B
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