Urban Legends
Tristar
2.35:1(16x9)/Pan&Scan/Dolby Digital 5.1
Rated:R
100 Minutes
Region:1
Reviewed on a Panasonic A110
The Movie:
My least favorite of the teen horror genre, "Urban Legends" boasts some very talented actors(especially Tara Reid) in a horror
film that just feels...boring. The interesting plot, where a killer stalks a group of college kids and terrorizes them
in terms of past "urban legends" doesn't mean that the story itself is interesting and the actors suffer under some
really uninteresting dialogue. It doesn't help either that there isn't a sympathetic character in the bunch, like
Neve Campbell's character was on "Scream".
The film is punctuated by bursts of music that end up nowhere("the false alarm"). So many of those in a film like this ends
up turning a film into a case of the "cry wolf" syndrome(so many fakes that you simply don't care when something really
happens). It doesn't help that the characters are so one-dimensional and unsympathetic that you really don't care who gets killed.
Acting from Tara Reid and a few other actors are generally good, but there's also the other end of the spectrum where a talented
actor like Alicia Witt looks completely lost in the film. Rebecca Gayheart turns in a silly, over-the-top performance and there
are even performers like Jared Leto, whose character is simply annoying.
"Urban Legends" is one of those films where you simply become annoyed with the film for wasting two hours of your life. Two hours
that would have been better spent taking a nap. The only amusing moment, a joke on the TV show "Dawson's Creek", is far too short.
The Disc:
Picture Quality: Generally acceptable. The only thing scarier than the movie is the amount of shimmering on this disc. For an anamorphically
enhanced disc, there's quite a bit of shimmer present. I turned down the sharpness on the TV in an attempt to fix it, but to no avail. Images,
with the exception of a couple of night scenes, are very sharp and very detailed. Color saturation and contrast are generally very good and flesh
tones are excellent. The only major problem I had was quite a few instances of noticable shimmering. If there was no shimmering on the disc,
it would be perfection. Some of the daylight scenes especially look wonderful in terms of sharpness and detail. It's just the shimmering that's
the problem.
Audio: Sound mix that envelops you in the middle of the action, capturing all the little noises that usually make a film like this scary: all
the footsteps, the sounds that seemingly come from nowhere and the major music notes that signal something's going to happen. Dialogue sounds
quite good and sound is recorded clearly with no instances of distortion.
Extras:A nicely done featurette(just don't watch it before you watch the movie because it gives away major plot points). There is also quite
the deleted scene right after the featurette. There's also a commentary with the director, the writer and one of the actors that's generally
quite funny and gives away a few of the secrets of the production. It's one of those commentaries that thankfully doesn't state simply what's
going on on the screen. Unfortunately, the commentary runs off the tracks every so often into off-topic subjects and unneeded ones such
as a discussion of Gene Siskel's negative review of the movie.
Menus: Nice. Nothing special. Effective and nicely done menus, but no animation.
Overall: Rent it. Nicely done disc, but fairly horrid film.
The Grades:
Picture Quality:B+
Audio Quality:A-
Extras:B+
Menus:B-
The Film:D
Overall:B
