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Sunday 27 May 2012

Weekly Blu Ray Review: Back To The Future, Die Another Day, Jurassic Park, Alien vs. Predator and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

This is a new weekly post I'm beginning, basically at the end of every week I will be doing a quick review of all the blu rays I have watched that week (both new releases and older ones). The numerical rating will be rating the quality of the bu ray, not the film itself.

Back To The Future (1985)
A timeless classic, I sore this one in the cinema remastered last year for the 25th Anniversary, and I have to admit that I thought the work they'd done to it then was amazing, it looked as if it could have been made today. Well with the blu ray release they have managed to make it look even better, it is easily one of the best looking blu rays I own. Everything is sharp (especially the detail on the characters faces) and bright an the sound quality is good. The only complaint I really have with it is the same problem you always get with blu rays of older films, and that is that since everything looks so good, so real, you can easily tell what props are real and which aren't, and it magnifies a couple of bad visual effects. Apart from that, it looks great, no blu ray collection is complete without this film, it never gets old! 9/10.

Die Another Day (2002)
The last installment of Pierce Brosnan's James Bond in the series. I love Bond films on blu ray for one particular reason, and that is the opening sequence; since they are so over the top visually anyway, in blu ray, everyone looks so surreal, it's a great way to pull you into the film. Overall the film looks and sounds really good, however, there are occasions when the blu ray magnifies the awfulness of some of the special effects. That's always obvious with blu rays, the quality of the visuals is magnified, good becomes great, poor becomes, obviously poor. Apart from that, a very good blu ray for the collection. 7/10.

Jurassic Park (1993)
I sore this in the cinema last year for the re-release, it's one of those films I'd always wanted to see in the cinema, so I jumped at the opportunity. It wasn't remastered or anything, just as it was back in 1993. This is obviously part of the Ultimate Jurassic Park collection, and overall it looks good, there are parts that don't look so good, like in some scenes the backgrounds are sometimes a bit fuzzy, it's the same with some of the characters faces, nothing major, but still noticeable. Also things like bushes and leafs on trees sometimes blur together, it doesn't look good. The effects used on the dinosaurs are a bit outdated now, they still look great today (the mixture between stop-motion and CGI), just a little bit more noticeable. When I sore it in the cinema I noticed some flaws in the effects, but in it's defense, these effects were groundbreaking 19 years ago. With the blu ray release, somehow the bad side of the effects haven't been magnified as much as you'd expect, it's still noticeable, but a lot of the dinosaurs were incredibly detailed models so it enhances that detail making it look superb! So it's a mixture of good and bad, but still a necessity for your collection. I will probably be seeing the 3D re-release for the 20 year anniversary next year because I'm a sucker for 3D re-releases. 7/10.

Alien Vs. Predator (2004)
I was pleasantly surprised at how good this film looked, it's a shame the film itself isn't that great, but I'm not here to talk about that, I've already complained enough about this film on a previous blog post. There are a few great moments where thing looks great (i.e. the chestburster scene) and a few that don't look so great (e.i. the first fight between the Xenomorph and the Predator), but I think that's the fault of the film makers and not the blu ray quality, but like I've said with every film so far, the bad effects are magnified. 7.5/10.

Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
Sadly this one does not look nearly as good as its predecessor, it's a better film altogether, but the blu ray release wasn't so good. This is because the film is very dark all the way through, even in the cinema it was difficult to see certain details, and it's the same with the blu rays. They had the perfect chance to enhance the right parts and make it easier on the eye, but they wasted the opportunity. The Xenomorph's and the Predator's look great, the blu ray really brings out the details in them (when you can see them, you have to walk into a lit up area first). So it's a good watch, but not worth the blu ray, the DVD looks just as good. 5/10.

That's it for this week, next week I shall definitely be reviewing 'Chronicle' and 'Iron Sky', plus whatever else I decide to watch during the week. Since 'Iron Sky' had such a limited release, I will be giving it a full movie review as well. If there's any film you want me to watch and review, just tweet me @DarthSpock.

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