Dracula 3D (2012)

Movie: 2.5/5
Video: 5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 2.5/5
Overall: 4/5

"Dario ... Dario ... Dario ..."

Dracula 3D is Dario Argento's take on Bram Stoker's novel. Harker (Unax Ugalde) is on a business trip to work for Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann; Blade II, King Kong). Harker meets Dracula's previous victim and now servant, Tanja (Miriam Giovanelli); and is attacked and bitten. Mina (Marta Gastini, The Rite) arrives in the village and is meet by her old friend Lucy (Asia Argento; xXx, Demons 2).

Dracula seduces Lucy and has her persuade Mina to go to Dracula's castle to find her husband. Once there, Mina cannot figure out where she knows Dracula. When Van Helsing (Rutger Hauer; The Hitcher, The Rite) is called in; Mina may not make it out alive.

I cannot personally decide if I like or loathe this movie. Argento's newer films are not as good as his older films. The film has horrible CGI effects, green screen backdrops, acting, continuity, and atrocious camera work. There are CGI animals and effects which look like they were made with computer equipment from the early 1990's; especially the opening title sequence. Most of the actors in the film do not speak English as a first language; and this film was shot in English. You can tell a good portion of the film is dubbed.

Camera work was pretty bad. Shots will linger on for far too longer than they should. Angles are pretty bizarre too. There's a scene in a church, where the angle is to a point where you can't even see both actors' faces. Who seriously thought this was a good idea? I give the film a 2.5/5.

Video: 5/5

Shot digitally with stereoscopic 3D equipment; Dracula 3D sports a very nice and strong video presentation. We have the film in it's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and in 1080p. Sony Pictures Italy gives this film the video quality that it deserves. While I can only view the film in 2D, color and saturation and grain looks strong. Look at how nice and detailed day time scenes are. It's fantastic. 5/5.

Audio: 5/5

Sony Italy has given the film two audio presentations; English and an Italian dub, both DTS-HD MA 5.1. Oddly, for an Italian Blu-ray, Sony has only given the film the subtitles in French. The English audio sounds great; considering that a lot of sound effects used in the film are reused from the past ten to fifteen years. I give the audio track 5/5.

Extras: 2.5/5

Most of the bonus material is in Italian. Backstage with the Crew; behind the scenes that lasts for fifty minutes. Backstage with the Cast; almost twenty minutes and I was livid while watching this part.  Thomas Kretschmann is talking about how he acts and goes on about the film and flat out says; "I have no idea what we are doing here." With how this film is, I can honestly believe that. Rutger Hauer even looks lost and confused talking about this film. And finally a music video called Kiss Me Dracula, by Claudio Simonetti. 2.5/5.

Overall: 4/5

Sony Italy has given Dario's film a great release. However, I don't know if I can honestly recommend the film. I would probably choose Deep Red or Susperia over Dracula 3D. Be cautious going into this film; don't go in thinking this is his return to making great horror. You'll be sadly mistaken. 4/5.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits 2D (2012)

Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

"We're Not Really Scientists. It's Us, the Pirates. See?"

A few months ago; while searching through the used Blu-ray copies at Drug Mart, I managed to score a used copy of The Pirates! Band of Misfits while another coupon deal was going on and managed to score it for $6. I had been trying to score a copy of the film during Black Friday 2012 with no luck. I believe back then, it was going for like $10 for a brand new copy, but for $6 + tax, I felt this was just right.

The film revolves around the Pirate Captain, voiced by Hugh Grant, as he tries to win the "Pirate of the Year" awards. While he is out done by three higher up pirates, the Captain gives up hope on ever winning the prize. He begins to raid every ship with no success and finally hits a ship that has Charles Darwin on it. Darwin realizes that the Pirate Captain's faithful parrot is indeed to be a dodo bird, which has been extinct for about 200 years. Darwin takes the Captain and his crew back to London where hilarity ensues and the Pirate Captain must make the choice on keeping his beloved bird or giving her up to the Queen of England.

I thought the film was pretty funny. I really liked how the pirates kept ruining Darwin's plans on taking the dodo away as they disguise themselves from girl scouts to scientists. It did feel like it dragged a bit in some spots, especially during the first half hour before the pirates land in England. After that, it felt to flow evenly and I enjoyed the humor. I give the film a 3.5/5.

Video: 5/5

Sony has presented the film in it's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and in 1080p with MPEG4 encode. It's nice to see an animated film in scope, seeing that most are in 1.78/85:1 is a bit boring if you ask me. The film has a bitrate that stays in the mid-20's for Mbps. It's pretty flawless, in terms of quality since it's been all done digitally. It's as close as perfection as possible. 5/5.

Audio: 5/5

Sony has given the film a very nice English DTS-HD MA 5.1; along with a French dub track in DTS-HD MA 5.1 and a Spanish dub in basic Dolby Digital 5.1. For those who have hearing problems, we have an English descriptive audio track. The main English audio track is all around amazing. Like the video presentation, Sony gives the film's audio presentation something as close to perfect as possible. 5/5.

Extras: 5/5

We some pretty interesting and entertaining bonus materials; a commentary by Pete Lord; three short films; two making of segments; some games; and trailers. There's also a DVD and Ultraviolet copies provided in this release which I don't honestly care for at all. The three short films, two of which are prior stop motion works by Pete Lord are pretty entertaining. The third short is "So You Want to Be a Pirate?" which is more like a parody of a late night talk show and runs for a good twenty minutes long. Even though I thought it was good, what was the point of it?

The two making of segments run for a total of a half hour, shows a good in depth look at how this film was put together and shows how much vast detail goes into getting a stop motion film made on a studio level. And it also shows how much care went into getting us the final product. I give all these bonus materials a 5/5.

Overall: 4.5/5

Sony has given this film the release it deserves. The audio and video presentation is flawless and is quite demo worthy for those who would like to show off how good an animated film looks in high definition. Considering I picked this release up for a very low price, I'd say it's worth picking up for anywhere up to $15 to $20. I give The Pirates! Band of Misfits a 4.5/5.

Silent Hill (2006)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 3/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Silent Hill - Needs New Transfer!

I luckily picked this up after Christmas for $15. This film, for me, was one of the reasons why I wanted a Blu-ray player. I love this movie; Silent Hill is my number 1 of all time for me. I've been a big fan of the video game since it's release in 1999 for the Playstation and I was hooked. I do feel that the changes in the film were not needed, like turning our protagonist into the opposite gender. The film really only seems to follow the first half of the video game but I do feel it is probably one of the best videogame to film adaptions of all time.

The Video, I give it a 3 out of 5. Given this title was released a few months after Blu-ray's release into society, I'm sure back in 2006, it was top notch, not so much now when I had purchased it back in 2009. It's just not that sharp if you ask me. But, oddly, when I watched the movie that night I had got it, it almost gave me that feeling like I was back in the movie theater watching it.

The audio, two English tracks, the Dolby and LCPM. The LCPM sounded amazing. My audio set up is a 2 ch. set up and I played it back with headphones and it sounds nice and clear in the LCPM. The Dolby sounds weak in comparison to it. I give it a 5 out of 5 for the audio, LCPM kills it.

The EXTRA'S? Nowhere to be found. There's a 1 hour documentary on the DVD release which I still have two copies of it. That brings it down significantly in the overall rating of this release. I remember back in Summer of 2008 when I got my player and I remember hunting down a copy of this and as soon as I found it, it went back on the shelf. The places near me that was selling it was charging $40 a copy; NO WAY IN HELL! I wait a year and a half later and I get it for $15.

Overall rating is 3.5 out of 5. If this was 2006, I'd probably would have given it a 5 out of 5, but I've been into the format for some time now and this release is not like something like The Fifth Element in terms of PQ. For the fact it is missing the making of documentary is another thing that brings this release down. 5 out of 5 for the film; 3 out of 5 for the video; 5 out of 5 for the audio; 0 out of 5 for Extras; 3.5 out of 5 total.