Mainstream Cinema

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Legend

With the release of Tomb Raider back in 1996, Core Design struck gold and gave the gaming industry its first true action heroine, Lara Croft - even if her gender and ample bosom arguably contributed far more to its success than any actual merit of the gameplay itself. Following the remarkable success of the first game, Core followed up with a sequel every year, with the law of diminishing returns ensuring that each subsequent instalment was inferior to its predecessors, until, following a three-year break after the half-hearted Tomb Raider: Chronicles, the Derby-based studio released the disastrous Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, a supposed drastic reimagining that, in reality, shambled on to the scene as an unfinished, buggy mess. The Angel of Darkness was so bad that publisher Eidos Interactive yanked development duties away from Core (an embarrassing situation, beyond any doubt) and handed them over to Crystal Dynamics, the US-based developer of the Legacy of Kain franchise. Tomb Raider: Legend, their first effort featuring the buxom adventurer, was eventually released in Spring 2006, three years after Core's final offering. The result: the best Tomb Raider game in years and arguably the first truly great instalment in the franchise.

Crystal Dynamics have wisely struck a balance between reinventing the game from the ground up and leaving enough of the original format to make it instantly familiar to those that have played its predecessors. One of the biggest criticisms of the various sequels was that they made the "Tomb" in Tomb Raider something of a joke, with Lara travelling to seemingly every location except actual tombs. Crystal Dynamics have rectified this, and, while there are certainly some diverse locations on display, including a trip to the skyscrapers of Tokyo at night, the bulk of the game takes place in various underground caverns and mausoleums. Including the fairly brief final boss fight, there are a total of eight different locations, most of them fairly sprawling although never daunting in their scale, with an estimated total of 10-15 hours of gameplay (according to the timer, I finished it in 9 hours and 36 minutes).

It's all over rather quickly, therefore, and I certainly found myself wishing it had gone on for a little longer, although various hidden goodies, which can be picked up to unlock bonus costumes and weapon upgrades, as well as a time trial option, do encourage you to replay the game. At the same time, Legend seems far less impenetrable than, say, Tomb Raider III, which eventually turned into giant sprawling level after giant sprawling level of tedium. It also helps that Legend's gameplay feels far more concentrated than many of its predecessors, with a focus on puzzles that can be completed using items already at your disposal rather than having to trek across huge levels to find an obscure button that will open a random door. Indeed, very few puzzles even require you to leave the room in which they are located, meaning that accomplishing your immediate objective is always within your grasp, thereby encouraging you to keep playing rather than simply giving up. The puzzles are also very logical, and indeed many even seem a little too straightforward, given that Lara or her various associates will often offer handy hints as to what needs to be done.

Crystal Dynamics have also reined in the frustration factor inherent in the constant deaths and restarts incurred during the previous games - a combination of their cumbersome controls and the games' demandingly exact grid-based movement system. Previously, even a simple jump from one block to another would be fraught with danger, as, chances were that you would line Lara up slightly wrong and end up missing your target. Legend is far more forgiving, in the sense that, provided you aim in the general vicinity of where you intend to go, chances are that Lara will automatically adjust her trajectory mid-jump and land where you want her. On the PC version, accuracy is also much-aided by finally allowing players to use the traditional mouse-and-keyboard combination favoured by every action game for years (this function was also present in The Angel of Darkness, although it did little to improve playability due to that game's clunky movement). As a result, Legend is infinitely smoother and more natural to control than any of its predecessors, meaning that gamers can actually play the game instead of wrangling with its basic mechanics.

A considerable amount of effort has also been invested in the story, which is of a more personal nature, given that it involves the fate of Lara's dead parents (the storyline has been modified somewhat since the first game to tie in better with the two film adaptations, although there are still some key differences between these two strands of the franchise) and a group of fellow explorers, many of whom came to a sticky end during a grave-digging jaunt in Paraíso. The various in-game cut-scenes are highly effective, with Lara ably voiced by actress Keeley Hawes (who played Zoe in the first three seasons of Spooks). Her banter with her various assistants, who keep in contact with her via a headset, is often quite funny, although there are a few clunkers, and, on occasions in which a particularly tricky puzzle requires multiple attempts (which are, admittedly, laudably few in number), the continued repetition of the same zingers becomes a little tiresome. Graphically, the game is also very impressive, with only a handful of blocky textures, which the art direction and level design do an admirable job of concealing the fact that the game is ultimately still based around jumping from one square block of ground to the next.

Where the gameplay is a little less impressive is in terms of its combat. It all feels a bit perfunctory, with very little possible variation beyond simply jumping about and pumping enemies with lead before they can finish you off. At Medium difficulty, the game is fairly generous in terms of doling out ammo and health packs (you can carry up to three at a time), while guns are limited to only a few variations (in addition to the now-standard pistols, you can carry only one other weapon at a time). It is possible to jump on top of human enemies to knock them down, which causes the game to enter into slow motion, allowing you to more precisely execute them, although the occasions on which this can be done (and indeed when this is actually worthwhile) are relatively few. The various bosses, meanwhile, which conclude most of the levels, can initially seem a little daunting, but are generally fairly straightforward once you work out the central puzzle, with very few of them requiring much in the way of dodging and acrobatics. A handful of motorcycle chases also tend to be a little frustrating, given that their controls are much more clunky than the game proper (the mouse, annoyingly, can't be used for steering).

Tomb Raider: Legend is ultimately a highly enjoyable game. It may not be particularly lengthy or taxing, but it is a beautifully-presented adventure with slick controls, an engaging plot and some fun puzzles. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it certainly salvages an aging franchise, breathing life into a series that I had otherwise given up on.

8/10.

DVDs I bought or received in the month of December

• The Adventures of Robin Hood (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• An American Werewolf in London (R0 USA, HD DVD/SD DVD combo)
• Basic Instinct (R0 France, HD DVD)
• Casablanca (R0 USA, HD DVD)
• The Double Life of Véronique: The Criterion Collection (R1 USA, SD DVD)
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (R0 UK, HD DVD)
• Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Four (R1 USA, SD DVD)
• Miami Vice (R0 USA, HD DVD/SD DVD combo)
• Operation Crossbow (R1 USA, SD DVD)
• The Quiller Memorandum (R1 USA, SD DVD)
• Serenity (R0 UK, HD DVD)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Ultimate Edition (R1 USA, SD DVD)
• Wolf Creek (R0 USA, HD DVD)

This month, the number of HD DVDs I picked up exceeded the number of standard definition DVDs for the first time: long may this trend continue.

Kisses, bangs, tombs and Blu-ray - oh my!

We took a little family outing today, and went to Braehead Shopping and Leisure Centre, where all the cool people buy their groceries. In the after-Christmas sales (or not), I picked up Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Legend (what a mouthful) for PC. I'd downloaded the demo on a whim and played it the night before, and found it to be surprisingly good, especially in comparison with its tedious predecessors. It seems that the move from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics salvaged the crumbling franchise and resulted in what it possibly the first truly good Tomb Raider game: even the much-lauded original struck me as rather anaemic, thanks mainly to the awful controls - Legend solves this by switching to a much appreciated mouse-and-keyboard combo. I'll probably do a full review once I've worked my way through the whole thing.

I also picked up Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on HD DVD. I'd been toying with getting the US release, which is an HD DVD/DVD combo, for some time, but, when I saw that the UK version was just a straight HD DVD, I decided to get it instead. I'm glad I did: this is probably the funniest film I've seen all day, and quite possibly my favourite HD DVD release so far. It's a little too smugly self-referential at times, especially in terms of the narration, but the rest of it had me guffawing uncontrollably. I don't think I actually understood the plot at all, but who cares when you've got Robert Downey Jr. losing his finger and having it swallowed by a dog, Val Kilmer playing a gay private detective called (what else?) Gay Perry, and Michelle Monaghan running down a Los Angeles highway in the middle of the night wearing a skimpy Santa outfit? I understand that the film didn't do particularly well at the box office, partly due to an ineffective advertising campaign that seriously misrepresented it, but don't let that put you off: this borderline satire of film noir is highly entertaining stuff and one of the most purely enjoyable films I've seen in ages.

After that, we headed over to Costco, where Lyris wanted to look into a 1080p television that he will, we hope, soon be picking up. It was there that I had my first up close and personal experience with Blu-ray. And do you know? It wasn't as bad as I was expecting...

It was worse!

I came across Lyris watching something on a moderately-sized HDTV. I glanced at the screen and saw what looked to me like a heavily edge enhanced but rather crisp DVD. "What's this?" I began to ask, but, even as the words left my mouth, I began to wonder if something foul was afoot. "That's not... is that... Blu-ray?" I spluttered. It was. The title in question was S.W.A.T., described by High-Def Digest as "a very nice-looking disc from Sony, and definitely one of the better they've put out on the format thus far". If this ranks among the studio's best, I'd hate to see their worst. The image was definitely sharper than standard definition DVD, and yet I wouldn't actually describe it as better. Sharper, yes: the edge enhancement was pretty invasive, and the image overall looked incredibly harsh rather than particularly detailed. But that paled in comparison to the appalling compression. "MPEG2 is perfectly viable for high definition" my left buttock. The film grain was rendered as grubby noise rather than actual grain, and, whenever the camera moved, macro-blocking was in abundance. Worse still, any part of the screen that might be described as remotely saturated was alive with smearing artefacts. Admittedly, an improperly set-up television in a warehouse is far from an ideal setting for evaluating a disc, but I highly doubt that all the calibration in the world would save the mess that assaulted my eyes today. I've never felt more glad we went with HD DVD instead.

Jingle bells

In case you didn't notice, yesterday was Christmas. As luck would have it, the various presents I had ordered all showed up on Saturday, contrary to all expectation (Saturday being the last day for the postal service until the 27th), and I got one or two surprises in addition to those. Thanks must go especially to Lee for sending me a copy of Burton on Burton, which, as you can probably guess, is a book on director Tim Burton and his bizarre gothic fantasies. I'm sure I'll enjoy getting stuck into it when I next have a spare moment.

Otherwise, there were no huge surprises. I got The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - The Complete Recordings (what a mouthful!) on CD but haven't had a chance to listen to anything but the first couple of tracks. And, in terms of DVDs, my collection now includes Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4, The Double Life of Véronique (Criterion), The Quiller Memorandum and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Ultimate Edition). I've not had the time to watch any of them, but I gave most of them a brief glance, and have collected my thoughts below.

• The Double Life of Véronique: This release looks slightly better than the French MK2 release (repackaged in the UK under the Artificial Eye label), but it's a close call. There is less noise reduction and the compression is better handled, giving the image a more eye-pleasing, filmlike appearance. However, I am once again annoyed that Criterion, who are (wrongly, in my opinion) frequently held up to be the pinnacle of DVD production companies, have chosen to assault the image with edge enhancement and brick-wall filtering. Especially following the advent of HD DVD, I am acutely aware that the vast majority of DVDs simply aren't of an acceptable level of quality.
  
  
• The Quiller Memorandum: Probably the worst transfer I've seen all year. This DVD was released only a month ago, and yet it looks almost like a LaserDisc master. The image is flat, detail is non-existent, and I once again find myself wondering how Fox, like Criterion, can garner so much praise for such feeble efforts.
  
  
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: This restoration, undertaken by Synapse's Don Mar Jr., has been praised to the high heavens on the Internet, and with good reason: the film has undoubtedly never looked better on a home video format, and the material May had to work with can't have been in particularly good condition. All the more reason, then, for my to be annoyed by Dark Sky's DVD, which is ineptly encoded, resulting in some of the most blatant macro-blocking I've seen in a long time. At times, the screen is such an array of compression blocks that it resembles a UK Freeview TV broadcast (which anyone who has witnessed this ingenious but flawed "digital TV through an antenna" solution will agree is capable of looking very bad indeed).

That's all for now. Thoughts on the Looney Tunes discs will follow eventually.

Here's someone else who doesn't pay import duty

The HD DVD of The Adventures of Robin Hood arrived from Deep Discount DVD yesterday, and I'm pleased to report that Warner have delivered another stellar disc. It's becoming quite apparent that, at Warner, there are two processes through which a title can go. The first, which has given us discs like Constantine, Million Dollar Baby and V for Vendetta, delivers a noise reduced, slightly edge enhanced transfer. These are good-looking discs, but not up to the standards I demand. The second, which has given us discs like Corpse Bride, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and now, seemingly, The Adventures of Robin Hood, results in an image that seems to be more or less completely untampered: sharp as a tack, appropriately grainy (or not, as is the case with the all-digital Corpse Bride), and no edge enhancement in sight. A couple of scenes in Robin Hood show some slight ringing, and I'm currently investigating to determine whether this is caused by edge enhancement applied to the transfer, or something else endemic to the source materials (optical process shots, for example, often result in what nowadays we would refer to as edge enhancement).

As for the film, I found it to be a hoot: gloriously colourful, outrageously camp and filled with swashbuckling adventure and melodrama. Not the sort of thing I usually go in for, but I was suitably entertained and found it to be an enjoyable enough way to kill an hour and a half. The high definition Looney Tunes cartoons look gorgeous too, although something is up with the sound on both of them, with a lot of crackling that sounds decidedly digital in nature during the high frequencies. I've tried two different sets of speakers, so it's not my sound system, and I can therefore only assume that this is a mastering fault.

On the not so positive side, only one of my four Christmas DVDs has arrived (Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4), which means that, if they don't show up by tomorrow (I'm not confident), they'll be too late.

HD DVD review: Miami Vice

Miami Vice is ultimately close to two and a half hours of posturing, insincere characterisation and abrasive style, none of which would suggest, barring the appearance of his name during the opening credits, that a filmmaker of Michael Mann's calibre was behind it. To describe it as a failed experiment would be charitable: a mess is a more accurate description.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don their designer shades and head out to the beach as I review Universal's recent HD DVD/DVD combo release of Miami Vice.

Buena Vista quietly switches to VC1

Source: High-Def Digest

Due in stores today, Disney's latest wave of Blu-ray titles features the studio's first VC-1-encoded title, the Jodie Foster thriller 'Flightplan.'

Interesting, interesting. Could we be in line for an HD DVD announcement at some point in the new year?

Le DVNR et la compression

My copy of Studio Canal's recently released HD DVD of Basic Instinct arrived from Amazon.fr this morning.

Unfortunately, the transfer, while clearly in a different league compared to standard definition, is artefact-ridden in a way that I've never seen on an HD DVD until now. Daylight scenes generally look fine, but those taking place at night or in subdued interior lighting conditions (which accounts for a considerable portion of the film's duration) look smeared and defocused. Grain patterns stick to the walls and actors' faces during panning shots, making it pretty clear that some intensive DVNR has been applied. And why? The film isn't even 15 years old, and the compressionists have 30 GB of data to play with (and no extras, barring a trailer for other Studio Canal titles and some test patterns). I don't think I'd go so far as to say that this is the least impressive HD DVD I've seen so far (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and An American Werewolf in London are contending for that crown), but it's definitely underwhelming and not the sort of thing I'd show to someone to sell them on the delights of high definition.

I just hope this isn't indicative of what we can expect from Studio Canal as a whole. Certainly their trailer reel, which showcases everything from The Elephant Man to Rambo to Ran, looks rather mixed in terms of quality, with some material looking absolutely excellent (the grain in Rambo looks phenomenal, and their version of Million Dollar Baby looks more impressive than Warner's), but some not so impressive (Ran is marred by giant edge enhancement halos).

Here's looking at you, HD DVD

My HD DVD of Casablanca arrived from Deep Discount DVD this morning (The Adventures of Robin Hood was dispatched a few hours later than it, so presumably it will come tomorrow).

I'm very impressed with the work Warner has done on the transfer, and would place it at around a low 9/10 on my scale. First of all, this disc should put paid to the foolish notion that there's no point in buying "old films" in high definition. The higher resolution results in as much of an improvement to the overall level of detail as any modern film I've seen, and by and large the digital tampering is kept to a minimum. There are a few niggles, however. The first is some occasional edge enhancement and filtering of the grain, suggesting that this disc was encoded (or the master created - it's unclear at which stage in the chain the faults are being introduced) by whoever was in charge of Constantine and V for Vendetta rather than whoever did Corpse Bride and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Lyris also noticed some evidence of DVNR, particularly during the airport climax in a shot where Humphrey Bogart turns his head rapidly, resulting in the grain and the details of his face "dragging".

By and large, though, this is a great-looking HD DVD. If Warner manages to top this with The Adventures of Robin Hood I will be very impressed.

DVD image comparison: An American Werewolf in London

It's that time of the month again: I've done a brand new DVD Image Comparison, this time focusing on John Landis' horror classic An American Werewolf in London. Entering the ring tonight are the DVD side of the recently-released US HD DVD/DVD combo (which seems to be identical to the standalone R1 DVD), and the R2 UK Twenty-first Anniversary Special Edition (how's that for a mouthful?).

Who will be victorious? Click and all will be revealed.

Kerbang! Boom! Crash!

My copy of Operation Crossbow (R1 USA) arrived from DVD Pacific this morning. As I mentioned back in August, back in May 2006 Warner gave fans the chance to vote for which catalogue titles they would like to see released. The only title in the list that appealed to me was Operation Crossbow, a World War 2 spy/action movie that I'd loved ever since I happened to catch it on TV back in the early 1990s, so naturally it was the title I voted for. Apparently I'm not alone in my love of this film, for it was one of the five titles announced for a December 2006 released (another five will be released in January).

I've seen the film several times before, but never in its original 2.35:1 ratio. Uncropped, you really come to appreciate the scale of the piece, especially the cavernous underground set in which most of the film's second half takes place. Warner's transfer is also very nice: it's certainly not a Casablanca or Citizen Kane style of restoration, but that suits me absolutely fine, because it looks just as I would expect a film from 1965 to look, with grain, white flecks and the occasional visible splice. I was a little concerned, initially, by the fact that the only English track on the disc is a 5.1 affair, but it turns out that the 70mm prints of the film were accompanied by a 6-track recording, on which I presume the DVD's track was based.

But what of the film itself? How does it stack up after all these years? Very well, for the most part. It certainly runs hot and cold, thanks to a rather uneven pace and an inability to keep the focus on the spies/saboteurs once they enter the underground rocket lab (it keeps jumping back to London, where the goings-on are considerably less interesting). Sophia Loren, who gets top billing, is also wasted in a role that turns out to be not much more than a glorified cameo. Otherwise, though, this is a great mindless romp that keeps me engaged despite the two-hour running time. It's no Where Eagles Dare, that's for sure, but it is the sort of movie you can pull out every few years and still find as entertaining as it was the first time you saw it.

Mann oh mann

This morning, I received a review copy of the HD DVD/SD DVD combo of Michael Mann's Miami Vice courtesy of DVD Pacific. I've never seen the 80s TV series on which the film is based, so I really didn't know what to expect.

All I can say is that I'm glad this was a review copy and thus something I didn't have to pay for, except with the two hours and twenty minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Miami Vice is an incoherent mess, an eyesore and assault on the ears. It's one hundred and forty minutes of Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx slicking back their hair and/or adjusting their shades as they swagger around various seaside locations with their jaws firmly set and their designer shades glinting in the sunlight. The plot feels like your average 45-minute cop show stretched out to beyond the normal length of a feature film, while the characters are nothing more than mere archetypes who spit out corny dialogue and offer us glaring insights into their tedious and insincere emotions.

Style-wise, the film is all over the place. Mann shot it using a combination of traditional 35mm and 1080p high definition. Some of it looks fine, but the night scenes look absolutely vile, filled with obnoxious amounts of digital noise. Meanwhile, a whole lot of scenes have what can only be described as a motion blur effect, presumably the result of shooting the footage interlaced and then deinterlacing it for the final transfer. Mann used similar techniques on his previous film, Collateral, and they were just as bad there. If this is the future of cinema, I think I'd prefer to remain in the past. Oh, and the camerawork is dreadful, too: I get that Mann wanted to convey a sense of urgency, but when your viewpoint is jittering all of the place, Blair Witch-style, I feel ready to vomit rather than being drawn into the action.

Simply put, this is the worst film I've added to my HD collection thus far. A 3/10 is, I feel, extremely generous. Not recommended. The disc itself, however, is very good, with an array of extras that I'll no doubt have to plough through and a solid transfer that does the best it can with the uninspiring quality of the source materials.

It's called addiction

I'm sure I'm going to regret this when my credit card bill comes in, but at just over £10 per title (thanks to the ridiculously weak US dollar), these HD DVDs at Deep Discount DVD were too cheap to pass up (thanks Phantom for recommending them to me). I ordered The Adventures of Robin Hood and Casablanca, which, released in 1938 and 1942 respectively, will be the oldest titles I will own on HD DVD, not to mention (and correct me if I'm wrong here) the oldest titles available on the format, period. And yet, despite their age, they're apparently two of the best-looking discs out there.

With Robin Hood, I must confess that the real draw for me is not the main feature itself but the chance to see two Looney Tunes classics, Rabbit Hood and Robin Hood Daffy, in full 1080p high definition - my first encounter with 2D animation in HD. As for Casablanca, I've seen it before, and it's one of those films that I find myself respecting more than actually liking, but, for some reason, I have a genuine hankering to see an Academy ratio black and white film in high definition, and Casablanca certainly fits that particular bill.

Do you see what I see?

Make click.

SD to HD image comparison

No, no, I haven't actually somehow magically managed to get HD DVDs to play in my computer. This is merely a demonstration to give you some idea of the difference in resolution between standard definition and high definition, using the 1080p QuickTime V for Vendetta trailer (available here) as a source. I'm afraid I couldn't capture the exact same frame, and the black levels are a little off (blame whoever encoded it, not me), but you should still be able to get some idea of the phenomenal leap in quality that is achieved. The DVD image was upscaled to 1920x1080, and a 508x721 portion was then selected to prevent the image from being monstrously huge on your average computer screen.

Mouse over to switch between versions:
Standard definition | High definition

Quite something, isn't it? It certainly lets you appreciate the added level of facial detail.

La haute définition

Feminists beware! My first HD DVD from Studio Canal is winging its way to me as we speak, and it's - gasp! - Basic Instinct. As it happens, I've never seen Paul Verhoeven's "classic" (so I'm not yet sure whether "classic" should ineed be inside quotation marks), but I know of its reputation, and, of the currently available Studio Canal titles, it's the one that I thought seemed like the most interesting. (Whether in a good or a bad way remains to be seen, of course.)

Anyway, I should hopefully receive this from Amazon.fr in a week of so. Isn't this whole universal 24 fps 1080p and no region coding lark great?

HD DVD review: Serenity

With the UK release of Serenity, Universal have done what, five months ago, I wouldn't have thought was possible: taken my favourite HD transfer of all time and improved it. No, I don't think I'd recommend that everyone who already owns the US version immediately rushes out and picks up the UK release, but the difference is there. If you don't already have the US disc, be in no doubt: the UK release is the finest-looking digital video disc this reviewer has ever seen, and Universal and their competitors are going to have their work cut out one-upping this beauty.

Eight months after HD DVD first launched, it's double-dipping time! I've reviewed the recent R0 UK release of Serenity, investigating whether Universal's new, more efficient transfer is any different from its predecessor.

HD for High Disappointment

Two new HD DVDs winged their way to me from DVD Pacific this morning: An American Werewolf in London, from Universal, and Wolf Creek, from the Weinstein Company. Unfortunately, these are the most disappointing high definition discs I've received so far.

Let's start with An American Werewolf in London. Prior to receiving it, I was under no delusions as to how it would look. This is a low budget film from 1981, and one that, despite its cult following, is neither prestigious enough to be eligible for a Casablanca-style restoration, nor for the same standard of storage. So far, all of the HD DVD's I've bought have been of recent (i.e. less than 10 years old) films, many of them sourced from digital intermediates with the film negative itself being scanned almost as soon as it was shot. As such, there is a certain "look" that you can expect from them that you aren't going to get with something like American Werewolf. Still, I expect the technicians to do the best they can with the materials they are handed, and not to attempt any sort of invasive digital manipulation. Unfortunately, those responsible for the master used for this HD DVD clearly missed that particular memo from the HMS Whimsy, for they have attempted to compensate for the inherently somewhat soft look of the source materials by adding a tonne of edge enhancement. The aliasing on this particular title is the worst I've seen on any HD DVD, and would probably be considered pretty noticeable even on a standard definition release. All things considered, this gets a very low 6/10 from me.

Even the sound is a disaster - a 0/10 affair. American Werewolf was, unsurprisingly, mixed in mono, but, for the most recent theatrical re-release, Universal undertook a whiz-bang new DTS 5.1 remix, and in doing so not only fed the existing audio through multiple channels, but also threw in all manner of new sound effects not present originally. Unfortunately, on the DVD, and now the HD DVD, only this mangled 5.1 mix is provided. As far as I am concerned, this is not the film as it was originally released, and as such is a faulty product. Sorry to be harsh, but intrusive revisionism of this sort has absolutely no place on a disc whose cover art proclaims "The Look and Sound of Perfect™", unless of course the original version is also provided as an option.

Wolf Creek next, and I'm afraid things go from bad to worse. This film is actually not a "film" at all, since it was shot in 1080p high definition. As such, an HD DVD encoded at 1080p should theoretically provide a more or less perfect pixel to pixel replication of the original image that was recorded. Unfortunately, Wolf Creek has what Lyris refers to as "the Blu-ray look". The image is incredibly inconsistent. Some shots look absolutely brilliant, with razor-sharp details, while the fake grain added to many scenes to make the movie look a little more intense (and less like a home video) is accurately represented. Other scenes, though, show noticeable compression artefacts and give everything an odd "waxy" look, as fine details are smeared out, a little like the HD DVD of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Unlike most North American HD DVD studios, the Weinstein Company are using AVC/MPEG4 as their codec instead of VC1, and, while I personally was very pleased by the results that this produced for the Japanese HD DVD of The Machinist, I'm beginning to see why so many people are down on it if Wolf Creek is representative of how it generally looks. Another 6/10.

Oh, and the disc took absolutely ages - about three minutes - to boot. Apparently this problem affects all of the Weinstein Company's HD DVDs, for some reason.

Hannibal Rising... or is that sinking?

Well, it seems that Dino De Laurentiis is determined to milk the Hannibal Lecter gravy train for all it's worth, and this time he's managed to rope the character's creator, reclusive novelist Thomas Harris, in to help out. Harris's latest novel, Hannibal Rising, recently went on sale (I saw various displays promoting the hardcover edition while I was out and about today, but baulked at the price tag), and a film of the same name, written by Harris himself (it's unclear whether the film is based on the book, or vice versa, or a combination of the two), is due to be released in cinemas in February 2007. The first trailer is now available at Tobis (the on-screen text is in German, but there is no dialogue in the teaser itself), and it looks like a cash-in of the highest order.

I've liked all of the previous Lecter films to some degree, from the masterful Hannibal to the workmanlike but effective Red Dragon (I'd need to see Michael Mann's take on that particular tale, released as Manhunter, again to solidify my opinions on that venture), but this one just doesn't look particularly inspired. Admittedly, it's hard to get much of an idea of anything from a trailer, and a brief teaser at that, but a glance at the synopsis on IMDB isn't exactly filling me with hope. Who really needs "Hannibal: The Teenage Years", where we get to see the horrific events that shaped him into the vicious serial killer he is today? The tantalising glimpses of that in the novel of Hannibal (omitted from the film itself) were plenty, and I personally think these elements of his character work better if they're hidden away in the shadows rather than out in the open.

I'll probably end up seeing this film, if only for completeness' sake, but my expectations are pretty low.

Captain Whiggles' Christmas list

It's nearly that time of the year again and, in order to avoid any potential disappointments, I've decided to put together my Christmas list and get my orders in now, rather than waiting till the last moment. Therefore, on the birthday of everyone's favourite fictional deity (Mithras), I shall (hopefully) be receiving the following:

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4 (R1 USA). For the last few years now, it has been something of a custom for me to receive the latest instalment in this collection of remastered (and sometimes mangled) cartoon classics, and to spend a copious portion of the morning watching them with Lyris. The notion of a whole disc full of Speedy Gonzales cartoons on this set doesn't exactly seem like the most welcome prospect... although I don't imagine it being considerably worse than the Road Runner disc in the previous set.
   
• The Double Life of Véronique: The Criterion Collection (R1 USA). Although Krzysztof Kieslowski's brand of spiritualism doesn't really do much for a heathen such as myself, I must confess to being absolutely enthralled by his use of colour and imagery. His Three Colours: Blue is one of my favourite films ever for its cinematography and lyricism. I already own the French release of Véronique from MK2, but, for some reason, I never got round to watching it, and the news that the new Criterion release duplicates all of its extras, plus adds several of its own, in addition to a better transfer, makes this a must-have in my book. Expect to see the French release on eBay before too long. Oh, and check out John White's review of the Criterion set at DVD Times.
   
• The Quiller Memorandum and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Ultimate Edition (both R1 USA). Two catalogue titles picked up in the same order from DVD Pacific for a very reasonable combined price. I haven't seen The Quiller Memorandum, but I do love me my Cold War-era spy thrillers, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the greatest American horror films ever made, so it makes sense to add what is apparently the definitive edition to my collection (having previously sold the non-anamorphic UK release).
   
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: The Complete Recordings (on CD). Last Christmas, I bought the Complete Recordings package of The Fellowship of the Ring, a 4-disc set (3 CDs and one audio DVD) turned out to be a massive improvement on the heavily-truncated single-disc release, so it stands to reason that this instalment should also be a worthwhile acquisition. The Two Towers always struck me as having the weakest score of the three Lord of the Rings films, but I suspect that this is because, perhaps more than the other two films, it was severely short-changed by having some of its most impressive cues left out of the single-disc release.

I'm also currently pursuing replacing my current video card, Sapphire's ATI Radeon X850XT, with the similarly-performing nVidia GeForce 7600GT from ASUS, the EN7600GT/HTDI/256M model of which includes an HDMI output and HDCP compliancy, in addition to various high-end video processing features, such as inverse telecine, temporal de-interlacing, bad edit correction and hardware VC1 decoding. I'd originally planned on waiting to pick up a DirectX 10-enabled card from nVidia, but the price and power consumption of even the lower-end 8800GTS model were enough to persuade me to forego sheer brute strength and just settle for improved DVD (and eventually, I hope, HD DVD) playback. Besides, such a high power graphics card would probably be all but useless on my now-outdated Pentium 4 configuration.

Anyway, I bought a EN7600GT/HTDI/256M on eBay for a not unreasonable price, but, due to a mix-up, I was sent the non-HDMI, non-HDCP model instead. The correct model has been located, however, and I sent the other card back yesterday, so should hopefully be receiving the right one before too long. As an added bonus, the fact that I am buying what is technically a card from the previous generation of graphics technology means that I should hopefully be able to sell my current ATI card for not too much less than what I'm paying for this new one.