Another in a line of bad films done well on DVD. Rewind to May of 1998. I'm in class trying to get out, psyched up to see nothing other than "Godzilla." School's out and I run across the entire Chicago loop in somewhere around 15-20 minutes. I sit down in my seat at the temple of cinema, McClurg Court, the best theater in Chicago. And as the two hours pass, I just got angry and more angry. It's simply a horrid film, with a terrible script and bad acting(with the exception of Jean Reno).
And the most interesting thing is that, on video, like a lot of other things, it's not quite as bad. It's up from the level of "Made Me Angry" to "Well, It's Sort Of Harmless". The story revolves around the badly miscast Matt Broderick as a scientist plucked from his work to investigate and study what turns out to be "Godzilla". He's joined by a French Army guy(Jean Reno), his ex-girlfriend(Maria Pitillo in the year's worst female performance) and Hank Azaria(who's always somewhat funny). Those are the characters who are chased throughout by Godzilla. That's the plot.
The problems are many: Godzilla, although sort of an ok special effect, doesn't become a character. No plot. Really poor acting. The film goes on 30 minutes or so too long. There are some positively done scenes during the chases that are effective, but they're few and far between.
The DVD is done really, really well by Columbia/Tristar. The transfer is excellent and, for some reason, the dark scenes look clearer and better on the DVD than they did in the theater. But there are no artifacts and the DVD boasts a really fantastic transfer, with crisp colors in the day scenes especially.
The sound is another matter. If you like your neighbors, keep it low.If you're trying to drive your neighbors away, this is perfect. It's a extremely agressive sound mix that seems to be turned up to level 10, as it did in the theater. It's a wonderfully done sound mix on the DVD with a lot of sound FX action, but it's just a really, really loud film. The SDDS sound in the theater was painfully(I was in pain afterwards) loud. In conclusion, if you turn it on in one room of your house, the rest of the house will likely hear it like they're in the room with you.
Why do I like DVDs and LDs of movies I don't especially like? Because they have commentary, which is the reason I liked both formats in the first place. On this film, you get a very good commentary track from the special FX supervisors. It's a fun and educational commentary that's very interesting to listen to and adds a layer of understanding on how the film was put together.
Also on this Special Edition are: The Wallflowers music video, a photo gallery, a featurette, bios of the filmmakers and cast and a really quite cool animated menu.
I had a few problems with this disc on my Panasonic A-110, but I'm sure other players have these problems: 1. The layer change is real obvious. On most films, you think: "What layer change? I didn't see it!" On this disc, there is a definite moment where the soundtrack stops. It wasn't jumping ahead after the layer change or anything, but there was a serious stop for a second. The other problem I had was that you can't get back to the menu from any of the extra features. If you decide not to watch the featurette mid-featurette, you can't seem to press the menu button to go back. I thought that was kind of annoying.
To conclude, though, even if you didn't like the film, it's presented so well on DVD and the price isn't as high as other Tristar discs($24.95 MSRP, which means $19.95 or so at most stores that offer some sort of discount) that it's worth at least a rental and if you did enjoy it, it's well worth picking up on disc.
Region:1
Rating:PG-13
Running Time:139 Min.
Transfer Rating:A
Audio Rating:A
Extras Rating:A-
Film Rating:D
Menu Rating:A-
Overall Rating:B(Terrible Film, Great Disc)
