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In Short Hardly seen Fox thriller from earlier in the year gets quite a major special edition.
The film:
"Ravenous" certainly had its share of problems, the biggest one during production was the exit of its original director. It's an odd movie to begin with, a cannibal/period/western/thriller/mystery. It's a mixture of all of those things, with some incredible scenery thrown in to top it all off. The film stars Guy Pierce(formerly seen in "LA Confidential") and Robert Carlyle("Trainspotting").
Pierce stars as Boyd, a man who mistakenly is called a hero after he's found to have played dead in battle, allowing him to overtake an enemy outpost. Sent into the wilderness to a small fort, he finds himself in the company of a bunch of oddball soldiers(David Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Jeremy Davies and others round out the group). Things seem perfectly normal until a nearly frozen stranger arrives at the fort with a tale of a Winter expedition that went horribly wrong, ending in canabalism.
The soldiers put together a rescue party to see if anyone's still alive. Not a real good idea. The film turns a little bit(that's putting it lightly) on the gory side as it advances. It also takes a few odd spins around the emotional block, going from dark comedy to drama to dark comedy again. There's also a few wild plot twists, which I won't spoil here. It does begin to get a little predictable and slide downhill in the later half, but still, this is a visually interesting film that does have strong direction and some funny, smart dialogue.
"Ravenous" is certainly an odd movie and one that didn't find an audience during its theatrical release. If you're in the mood for an odd, well-acted horror film that provides a few good thrills, "Ravenous" is worth a rental.
The DVD
VIDEO: This is a good, but not flawless image. Images are consistely sharp and pleasingly clear. Colors look very natural and accurate: the sort of pale browns of the Fort to the pale whites of the snow to the greens of the forests. Some of the scenery here is absolutely goregous. It all reminds me of watching the DVD of Fox's "The Edge", a movie that took place in the Canadian wilderness, starring Anthony Hopkins. "Ravenous" looks fairly similar in quality, with a sharp picture and good detail, especially in the forests and a strong, beautiful image during the snowy scenes at the fort.
Still, there are a couple of problems with shimmering that were not too distracting, but still worth noting. There also seems to be a scratch or two on the print used. Overall though, I was very pleased with the majority of this DVD in terms of image quality.
SOUND: I always love movies that take place in the wilds, because like "The Edge", which I mentioned before, sound can certainly highten the tension, or add to the tone. Here, the winds blow throughout the sound field, frequently adding to the barren feel of the movie, the sort of damp cold of the weather. There's a lot of really nice ambient sounds and some effective surround use as well. Dialogue is fine throughout, always clear. There's no problems with the clear-sounding Albarn/Nyman score, as well.
MENUS: Pretty basic, just based around the art of the theatrical poster. Sub-menus are designed with "film-themed" art. Nice, easily to navigate, nothing too special.
EXTRAS:
Commentary 1:: This commentary is by director Antonia Bird and co-composer Damon Albarn of the band Blur. The main focus here is talk about the production in general, the problems and pros of the shoot and what it was like to work with the actors. Albarn contributes his thoughts on the concepts of the music that he contributed to the film(along with co-composer Michael Nyman). The two are fine together, going back and forth discussing the movie. There's a few pauses that were noticable in the commmentary, but overall I found this an informative commentary. Not really entertaining and informative like the 3rd commentary, but still good.
Commentary 2:: This commentary is by actor Robert Carlyle, who you may remember from "The Full Monty" and "Trainspotting" as well. The commentary starts in chapter 4. This is a fairly good commentary, with the actor talking about his memories of filming in Slovakia and his general thoughts on the history and concepts of his character. Prepare for a few pauses on this track where Carlyle stops talking. It would have been nice if Carlyle could have been paired with someone else like all of the other commentary tracks had.
Commentary 3:: This commentary is by writer Ted Griffin and actor Jeffrey Jones and really, it's the commentary that I found most enjoyable. The two go back and forth really well in the conversation, making the occasional joke about the story or the filming conditions. Most of their conversation talks about filming in foreign countries or the original details of a lot of the sequences and how they played out in the original draft. Griffin also offers quite a few details of how the project came into being, and his living conditions as a screenwriter trying to make a living. He also talks briefly about how this became a Fox project.
Set Designs/Costume Designs: There are two small-ish galleries included that provide a group of nicely done sketches for the original concepts of costumes and sets. There is also some text information as well to go along with the pictures. Somewhat minor in terms of amount, but still, these are really well drawn concept art and are informative. I really should be supporting Fox, because although they still may not be doing anamorphic transfers, hopefully(and I do mean hopefully) this is a sign of the kind of special editions that they want to do. And any extra content like this is always welcome.
Deleted Scenes About 10 minutes worth of deleted scenes- not able to be selected seperately, but they play out back-to-back. Always interesting to have these scenes, but I didn't think there was anything major enough to warrant being put back into the film. You can choose to hear commentary by director Antonia Bird or not during these scenes.
Trailer Both the trailer and TV spot are included.
Final Thoughts:Although it's unfortunate that Fox still charges $34.95 retail for all their new releases, it's really nice to see the kind of extra features that are included here. The three commentaries aren't really the best commentaries I've ever heard, but I certainly am pleased to see that many commentaries included. Fox is definitely making steps in the right direction and hopefully soon, they will start doing anamorphic transfers.
The Film: 75/C = (375/500 possible points)
Video: 91/A = (364/400 possible points)
Audio: 89/A = (356/400 possible points)
Extras: 98/A = (294/300 possible points)
Menus: 75/A = (150/200 possible points)
Value: 87/A = (261/300 possible points)
TOTAL POINTS:1800/2100
Average:85%/B
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