Luc Besson Collection Capsule Reviews: September 2009
On September 14th Optimum are releasing Luc Besson’s French productions on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK. I’ll be reviewing each release in the capsule format in this article, which will be updated as each review goes live. Although they are presented in our capsule format, some of the reviews will be longer than a typical capsule review, as some of the releases present multiple edits of a particular film and thus warrant a slightly more detailed discussion.
Although Léon made Luc Besson the toast of Tinseltown he was facing accusations of having lost his golden touch just two films later when The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc failed to set the world alight. The run of successes was over and Besson took 6 years off to take stock, go back to basics and back to black & white with the French character drama: Angel-A. It tells the tale of André Moussa, who is out on his ear in Paris with no money, no talents and in serious debt to a number of shady characters. After numerous runs ins with the goons of these various characters, André is left with one day to conjure up tens of thousands of Euros in cash to keep the sharks at bay. André needs a miracle, and he finds one in the form of a beautiful tall blonde named Angela, who beats André to the punch when he’s thinking of jumping into the Seine. When he jumps in and rescues her, she offers him her life to do with as he pleases, and becomes his companion on an odyssey through Paris by night where she offers a solution to his monetary problems and a chance of personal redemption.
Two outsiders: a man and a woman, who are two sides of the same coin and manage to resolve their despondency through the special bond they forge. This is certainly very familiar territory for Luc Besson, and yet in some ways Angel-A feels like a Besson film that isn’t quite a Besson film – perhaps because his regular French cast is missing and perhaps because this is the first of Besson’s films to not be scored by Eric Serra. While the cast and music may seem unfamiliar, the wit and visual splendour is distinctly Luc Besson and Angel-A looks fantastic, with Paris set up as a character in itself and the director/cameraman making doing is best to create a picturesque video postcard of some of the most stunning locations in the French capital.
Whereas Besson’s previous films were grounded in reality and a grim inevitability, this post-Fifth Element drama weaves a tale of hope through a fantastical setting. The big twist surrounding Angela’s appearance in André’s life is pretty obvious from the start, but when it does happen the cynic in me groaned a little at the obvious undercurrent of male fantasy fulfilment of having an altruistic beauty appearing in a man’s life, offering him her mind, body, and soul and kicking ass when commanded to. This feeling was ultimately overridden by the facetious charm of the script, along with the sincerity of the lead characters and the odd couple relationship they form. Jamel Debbouze in particular puts in a nicely layered performance and he has a rather impish puppy-dog appearance that makes him impossible to hate. Rie Rasmussen is also elegant and playfully assertive as Angela.
Angel-A is not quite as involving as the likes of Léon and The Big Blue, a little less talking and a little more inertia might have helped the drama settle a little; but after the inconsistency of Besson’s Hollywood films it’s a huge relief to see that, after more than two decades as a filmmaker, he’s still capable of approaching the exact same themes and very familiar characters and craft a thoroughly engaging drama.
The Disc: Angel-A is Besson’s first black and white film since The Last Battle, and like The Last Battle Optimum have slapped it onto a BD-25 with an average bitrate of 25Mbps. This means that in general the AVC encoding is stronger on this title than most of the other films in the Luc Besson Collection, although there are still signs of compression noise which mostly comes in the all-too-familiar form of some subtle but noticeable banding. Grain too could probably be better defined, but there’s so little grain in the transfer that you don’t really notice it anyway. The film was shot in colour then converted to black and white, which is a process that I always feel results in poor shadow detail, which is the case with Angel-A. Contrast feels reasonably natural and brightness levels seem a little low; blacks look crushed but whites seem nicely weighted. The grayscale image looks pretty good, although there’s just a hint of blue showing through. This isn’t a sharp transfer nor does it feel tremendously soft either, obviously I can’t say for sure given the lack of grain and softness, but it doesn’t feel like any heavy handed noise reduction is in play either, nor could I spot any edge enhancements.
For audio you’ve got the option of the original French in either DTS-HD MA or LPCM 2.0, naturally the DTS-HD track is the way to go here, which offers a very pleasing presentation. Dialogue is extremely clear throughout most the film and there are a number of scenes where the clarity of the dialogue appears almost as if it was looped, but I think there may be a little intentional fading of the environmental sounds to get a slightly surreal sound - plus the location shooting around places like Pont Alexandre III results in a lot of echo. The soundstage in general is nicely expressive and brings the numerous Parisian locations effectively to life, the front stage is wide and defined, while the rears do incorporate a satisfying amount of environmental sounds. Bass and treble response are very solid and each element of the sound is brought forth with clarity. In particular Anja Garbarek’s jazzy score sounds great whenever it takes over. In comparison the LPCM 2.0 track sounds restrained and noticeably less defined in both bass and ambience, and the score certainly has less depth to it.
Optimum have included a handful of extras, the highlight being the 26-minute Making Of which incorporates behind the scenes footage with sit down interviews with Jamel Debbouze and Rie Rasmussen. Considering Luc Besson has long shunned extra features like this it’s surprising how much footage there is of him at work, offering even more time with the auteur than the feature-length documentary on the making of The Big Blue, although it’s Jemal and his playful personality that dominates. There’s also a featurette that offers a glimpse at the making of Anja Garbarek’s score and music video for the film, but it offers little beyond rather monotonous shots of various musicians recording their parts. The aforementioned Music Video and a Theatrical Trailer (both in standard definition) complete the extras.
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Most of the review below was written for The DVD Forums Top 100 Films 2007 article we ran in 2008, all I’ve done is append a couple of paragraphs at the end to discuss Léon’s place within Besson’s filmography.
After hitting it big internationally with Nikita, Luc Besson decided to return to the world of professional killers for his first film that was set in the United States: Léon. Léon’s reclusive life as the top hitman for a local mob boss is turned upside down when his neighbour’s young daughter: Mathilda knocks on his door after the brutal murder of her family by Stansfield, the head of a corrupt police ring. Taking in Mathilda, Léon finds his life upturned by the increasingly assertive, pubescent girl and it’s not long before he’s persuaded to teach her the arts of his profession – which will soon bring them both into the path of Stansfield and his goons once again.
Besson’s gift as a maker of action thrillers is his ability to create fresh idiosyncratic characters and develop them through inventive character arcs. In Nikita he gave us a criminal junkie who is trained to become a governmental assassin. In Léon he gives us a fidgety, milk guzzling, Italian plant lover who conducts his business in an overcoat, round shades and a small wooly hat. In Mathilda we have a beaten, precocious child/wannabe seductress, and the villainous Stansfield is an extremely entertaining pill-popping psychotic with a penchant for classical music. On characterisation alone, Léon is a very engaging film – more so than your average action flick – but it is with the longer “Version Integralé” edit, which expands the relationship between Léon and Mathilda by developing their bond through a series of both awkward and pitch-black scenarios that the film really becomes something special.
Léon is probably the culmination of Luc Besson’s work as a filmmaker, it takes all his previous themes about isolation and awkward relationships and manages to portray them humanistically within the context of a violent action thriller. In Léon we have a similar soul to the unnamed protagonist of The Last Battle - someone who is completely alone and stuck in a monotonous routine - but also someone like Fred and Jacques in Subway and The Big Blue who is scarred by a tragedy in his childhood that has stunted his growth emotionally. Unlike these characters Léon’s not looking to express himself or become untethered from the world around him, instead he succeeds in committing to a real human relationship and grabbing a chance at redemption through his friendship with Mathilda. This makes Léon a far more empathetic character than any of Besson’s previous protagonists.
Mathilda represents the wild and impulsive outsider we see in Fred and Nikita, but when placed in the context of an abused child the emotional naiveté and reckless rebellion seems far more fitting. Also by developing his first truly antagonistic villain since The Last Battle with the character of Stansfield, and ramping up the action quota beyond that of Nikita, Besson finally resolved the narrative issues that plagued his previous work. The director is not the only one on top form either, Eric Serra’s score goes beyond the mood pieces he’d mostly created in his previous collaborations with Besson, and now seems to be channelling the soul and intense loneliness of the central character, creating a beautifully evocative accompaniment to the film.
The Disc: The French and German Blu-ray releases of Léon warned us that the hi-def masters that are currently being used for this film leave a lot to be desired, and sure enough this release from Optimum bears all the hallmarks of an early high definition master: The transfer is rife with edge enhancements and the contrast and brightness levels have been completely blown out, giving the image a stark look that I find rather harsh on the eyes and not remotely appealing at all. The whole look of the film is white hot, any texture or material that can reflect any light at all is in danger of blooming like hell from one scene to the next, and people tend to look like they’re standing directly under a spotlight. Aside from the obvious loss of detail we get from such heavy handed clipping (the greyscale has been totally destroyed) the brightness-boosted colours never seem completely perfect either, resulting in a transfer that feels just a tiny bit poorly saturated, with skintones appearing slightly pallid. Don’t get me wrong, in general the colour scheme is appealing enough and a noticeable improvement over the DVD releases, but at the same time the palette seems slightly restricted compared to subtle gradation of colours you usually find in High-Definition.
Elsewhere the image is a little more successful, detail isn’t fantastic but it is at least an improvement over standard definition, and naturally black levels are resoundingly deep and only falter in a few shots. Grain varies from a light and fuzzy layer throughout most the film to a deeper and sharper texture in scenes with low lighting – in particular the raid on The Fat Man’s house at the start. As with The Big Blue both versions of the film are presented on a separate encode with a low bitrate AVC compression that averages out at 19.33Mbps for the Version Integralé and 18.47Mbps for the Theatrical Cut. As with The Big Blue the compression is better than you’d expect for a BD-50 with over 4hrs of HD video on it, but there is some compression noise here and there - as well as some very noticeable banding at a couple of points in the film. Mostly the low bit rate makes its presence known in the diffuseness of the grain, which robs the transfer of a completely film-like appearance. Also in correlation with The Big Blue the transfers of the two edits of the film look pretty much the same, with only bitrate differences on offer.
Audio options are a choice of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 or English LPCM 2.0 for each version of the film. Unfortunately for the Version Integralé edit the 5.1 DTS-HD track sounds like it may have been struck from a 2.0 source, as it sounds to my ears to be pretty much identical to the LPCM 2.0 track. For the most part this is no bad thing, as the 2.0 track offers a decent audio presentation; bass is pretty deep and only a touch loose while treble response is a little on the harsh side, lending a rather shrill feel to the dialogue. In general the audio dynamics are good, but dialogue sounds high in the mix and exhibits audible hiss. Unlike in Nikita the gunfire in Léon sounds more authentic and has enough depth here, but the volume is noticeably low when action kicks in - almost as if the action sequences have been slightly compressed dynamically. Thankfully Eric Serra’s score does not sound compressed, it sounds refined and detailed. The soundstage is solid, nothing more, there’s not a tremendous amount of directionality in the fronts but the rears do get used in the action sequences.
When you switch over to the Theatrical Cut the difference between the DTS tracks become night and day, the dialogue sounds very similar - it’s still high in the mix - but when the action kicks in the bass can really be felt, the surrounds come truly to life and the volume of the action is satisfyingly high. The LPCM 2.0 track on the Theatrical Cut is pretty close to its DTS counterpart, just with weaker bass - but it’s still noticeably more bassy than the LPCM track on the Version Integralé. Either way you look at it, the DTS-HD track on the Version Integralé cut sounds poor next to the corresponding track on the Theatrical Cut, and may be all the reason fans need to seek the French or German BD releases over the Optimum (not that I’m saying those releases sound any better, I’ve never owned them).
Extra Features come directly from the R1 Columbia Tristar Deluxe Edition DVD, there’s a 25-minute 10 Year Retrospective featurette that features input from pretty much everyone involved in the film bar Besson and Oldman. It’s too short to offer any real insight into the film’s production, but there is at least a satisfying amount of information shared. An interview each with Natalie Portman and Jean Renó are a little more involving but again too short to really go into depth, at least it’s great to finally see Reno on camera talking about his career with Besson. A standard definition (and poor quality) trailer is also provided.
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After Nikita finally earned Luc Besson the attention of mainstream audiences in America, few would have guessed that he would return to the ocean to deliver another action-free, aquatic themed piece. Even less would have guessed that this time round he would take a crack at a documentary that would simply present raw footage of marine wildlife in their natural habitat, set to music composed by Eric Serra. There is almost no voiceover narration in Atlantis, and Besson has no story to tell so you feel like you’re on a trip to a massive aquarium with fancy music to set the scene. This means Atlantis relies solely on how much the viewer finds marine animals interesting and it also relies on how much patience they have, given the mood of the piece is extremely chilled out and the runtime is just under eighty minutes. If that’s a yes to both then Atlantis will easily impress, you’ll be treated to footage of a wide variety of creatures taken from seas and oceans all over the world, and the visuals are really fantastic; it’s certainly something to get to watch these animals up close in 2.35:1 recorded on 35mm, offering a level of detail and colour clarity you won’t get from your standard Discovery channel show. Besson’s editing is also impressively seamless, giving the impression that you’re watching one organic movement.
Backing up the obvious visual appeal of the piece is a diverse and evocative score from Eric Serra, which plays for the entire runtime of the film and so naturally sees the Besson regular branch out from his previous work for the director and work with symphonies to deliver a soundtrack that flits between a wide range of music genres. From Middle Eastern riffs, to opera, to funk infused rock, to pop music, to ethereal choir singing, Serra consistently finds the right sound to match each image and proves a vital component to Atlantis’ soothing appeal.
The Disc: Now, I do say that Atlantis offers a level of detail and colour clarity that you wouldn’t find in your average sea life TV show, but compared to any ordinary earth bound 35mm film Atlantis certainly looks noticeably soft, and colours naturally foggy. Obviously the underwater cinematography limits just how “hi-def” this image is going to look, certainly it’s the softest of all the films in the Luc Besson Collection, and contrast and brightness levels are easily the lowest of the collection as well. It’s hard to say if any clipping is in action here, the sequences that look up towards the surface of the sea/ocean definitely bloom where the sun hits the water, but that seems pretty natural. There’s a whole chapter of the film set in the sea at night, but obviously because of the lamps used to light the sea life, blacks are never completely black - nor do shadows look that deep in the deep water shots of octopodes that precedes the night section. I can’t say the black levels look that unnaturally low though. Colours likewise are obviously affected by the underwater cinematography, the film is all blue and green tones and most of the sequences have a diffuse, foggy light to them which gives the blues a slightly greyish quality, whereas other scenes exhibit a sharper, more lavish display of colour. This isn’t a vibrantly coloured film and the BD transfer reflects that reasonably well.
So far, every individual transfer in the Luc Besson Collection has received a rather low bitrate AVC encode so that each version of the films in question fit on a BD-25 layer. Atlantis is a short film at just under 80-minutes, but for the life of me I cannot see the logic in using a bitrate with an average as low as 20.13Mbps on such a short, murky film. They could have nearly doubled that and still fit the feature on a BD-25. As a result there is noise, most noticeably as banding present throughout. It’s nothing worse than any other title in the collection, but still somewhat excessive for this film. Also with the low bitrate this transfer exhibits poorly defined, fuzzy grain which ranges from light to moderate in the darker sequences. At least the image feels relatively untampered, hard to say whether noise reduction is being used, but edge enhancements are rarely used and on the one or two occasions they are, they’re so slight you shouldn’t really notice them too much in regular playback.
Shown theatrically in Dolby Stereo SR, the French LPCM 2.0 audio track seems to be a pretty decent reproduction. It’s the best of all the LPCM 2.0 tracks in the Luc Besson Collection and offers a smooth presentation with bass that is fairly deep without sounding too hollow, and very solid treble response. What’s more the soundstage is reasonably expressive and enveloping, incorporating some solid use of the surrounds through the score. Audio dynamics are good, so each element of Serra’s score is nicely defined, and aside from a little tearing in the higher notes, the audio is pretty clean. The sole extra feature on this disc is a French Theatrical Trailer which is actually a pretty cool behind-the-scenes snippet that shows Besson descending into the water from a helicopter, complete with his diving equipment and bulky underwater camera; it is shown in standard definition.
Please Note: As with The Big Blue, the review disc of Atlantis that was sent to us had the data directory on it mislabelled as Angel-A.
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It seemed after flirting with action in The Last Battle and Subway that the logical progression of Luc Besson’s career would be into high budget action fare, but The Big Blue threw a big sun-kissed, languid spanner right into the works. Nikita brought things back on track, and finally Besson achieved the success in America that he was seeking with The Big Blue. Anne Parillaud plays Nikita, a detached smackhead who kills a cop in a raid on a drugstore and gets sent down for life without parole for at least 30yrs. She catches the eye of an enigmatic government official known only as Bob, who drafts her into a top secret training scheme to produce state assassins, and over the course of three years they chisel the wild and irrepressible junkie into a sophisticated, elegant secret agent. After graduating from this underground academy, Nikita is given a new identity and let out into the real world to lead a real, independent life while she waits for her first assignment. She starts a whirlwind romance with a gentle supermarket cashier called Marco, but as they’re about to take their relationship to the next level the government assignments start periodically appearing, leading Nikita back into a life of uncertainty and danger.
It’s hard to imagine the impact Nikita had on US action fans back in 1990, it was one of the films that obliterated the established conventions of the 80s of the self-aware, ultra-macho flippant hero and ushered in a new era of internally conflicted, sensitive action leads. The heavy influences on the action sequences from Asian cinema also pre-dated Tarantino and really stood out in a time when Asian “Heroic Bloodshed” gunplays had yet to be exposed to the Western mainstream (that would happen a couple of years later with Hard Boiled). Comic book films were also few and far between back then, which made the comic book “origin story” nature of Nikita’s transformation from wild, untamed junkie to clinical, cultured assassin stand out even more. It was My Fair Lady with guns; Besson even cast an Audrey Hepburn-esque gamine as the lead with Anne Parillaud, and Tchéky Karyo as her effortlessly suave Pygmalion.
There’s a good argument to be made for Nikita as one of the most important action films of the 90s as far as Hollywood is concerned, it’s certainly been mimicked enough – indeed Besson himself revisited a number of its ideas for Léon – but beyond its obvious influence Nikita is simply a good action drama, albeit one that might seem a little less groundbreaking and lazily paced by today’s high-octane standards. There are some great set pieces in Nikita where Besson creates unexpected contexts for action, like the birthday celebration between Bob and Nikita in a swanky French restaurant that is actually a front for her first mission as an assassin, and there’s amusing irony in how Besson bureaucratises the assassin business, with the gunmen at the lowest ebb of the command chain not knowing what is going on with their missions half the time. It’s certainly a far cry from the unemotional automaton assassins that usually inhabit action thrillers.
At the same time there are also the usual narrative weaknesses we find from Besson’s scripts in the middle act. At just under two hours the film feels a good 20 minutes too long, mostly because the love story between Nikita and Marco in the second half is nowhere near as interesting as the unrequited romance between Nikita and Bob in the first half. Besson never satisfyingly conveys the strain that leading a double life takes on Nikita’s relationship, nor is there much action in this double life to make up for the slow drama. Luckily things pick up pace considerably in the closing act when Nikita receives a more involving mission and Jean Reno arrives in an iconic role that injects some much needed life and humour into the film.
The Disc: Presented in 2.35:1 Nikita generally looks slightly better than the previous films in The Luc Besson Collection, but it still falls slightly short of the transfer on the Sony US blu-ray. It’s a solid transfer, the image is generally detailed with close ups showing a pleasing amount of fine detail and a vibrant colour scheme that remains bold and expressive without losing the gritty feel of Thierry Arbogast’s cinematography. Skintones are a little pale and contrast/brightness levels appear high, with whites regularly blooming. Black levels are solid and consistent, although blacks do appear slightly crushed, but shadow detail is good. Grain is kept to a light, fuzzy layer that deepens in darker scenes, but the texture of the grain is compromised by the low bit rate of the AVC encode - which averages out at 20.23Mbps - resulting in blocking. Edge Enhancements can also be seen from time to time. In comparison to the US BD the Optimum disc is a touch brighter and a tiny bit softer, with grain in particular being much sharper and better defined on the US release. Colours are also slightly less saturated on the Optimum release.
Audio comes in the form of a French LPCM 2.0 track which offers a solid, no-thrills audio presentation. Again we’re seeing a slight increase in clarity over the previous films in the Luc Besson Collection; in general Nikita sounds clean and pretty smooth as far as treble response is concerned. Bass levels are pretty solid and add depth to the dialogue and score, but the various gun shootouts in Nikita have the kind of sound design you can expect from a bunch of Frenchmen who don’t have a habit of shooting guns off, so the gunshots hardly sound like the weapons that are actually in use, with handguns sounding more like elephant guns. With this in mind the bass in the action sequences is too booming and too hollow and does pull you out of the film a little. Other than that niggling point audio is hard to fault, sound dynamics are strong and the soundstage is ok, but perhaps not as expressive or enveloping as fans will expect (especially in the rears). The Sony BD comes with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 remix which may be an important selling point for fans, but I don’t think you’re being too short changed by this LPCM track, the film was originally shown in Dolby Stereo SR afterall. Optional subtitles are provided in English, and I can confirm that they are not dubtitles.
The only two substantial extra features come courtesy of the MGM R1 Special Edition DVD, the first is a 20-minute Making Of featurette which is a retrospective talking heads piece with the main cast that is rendered rather pointless by the fact that they mostly stick to explaining this completely uncomplicated film. The Sound of Nikita is a 5-minute interview with Eric Serra on the film’s sound; it’s more involving than the Making Of, but far too short to offer much. Aside from the theatrical trailer the other extras on this disc seem to be all new featurettes, but are in reality just incomprehensible 33-second snippets that were left out of the Making Of featurette. It appears they exist purely to give the impression of a longer list of extra features.
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An intense labour of love for Luc Besson, The Big Blue draws upon his own aquatic upbringing by parents who were scuba diving instructors. Throughout his formative years his dream was to become a maritime biologist, but a diving accident when he was 17 forced him to contemplate a career on dry land. There are obvious parallels here with the main protagonist of Subway, who dreamt of being a singer but damaged his vocal chords in a car accident. In The Big Blue Besson draws parallels between his own childhood and the life of former Free Diving world champion Jacques Mayol, taking a loosely autobiographical approach to fictionalise the competitive rivalry between Mayol and fellow diving champion: Enzo Maiorca. The film follows two unlikely friends Jacques and Enzo, whose bond is forged through the love of diving that both developed during their childhood in Greece. They eventually become estranged when Jacques leaves town after his father dies in a diving accident, but when Enzo becomes the world diving champion he seeks out his former friend and only real competition. As Jacques and Enzo reignite their rivalry and compete in various free diving competitions, Jacques becomes involved with an American insurance agent named Joanne, who has given up everything in pursuit of love.
The Big Blue was going to be the film that would crack the US market and make Besson a global superstar. It did make him a global name, just not in America, where audiences were treated to a cut, re-edited, re-scored version. It’s hard to say if this was the sole reason The Big Blue failed in the states, as to this day the film continues to split audience opinion. I can understand why it alienates certain viewers, it is after all a near 3-hour sports film/character study where the sport in question involves people swimming directly down, then floating directly up, with no real insight into this highly technical process given beyond the fact that you need to hold your breath for a really long time. The central role of Jacques is also a bit of a head scratcher, he spends his time travelling from gorgeous location to gorgeous location, winning competitions and boinking Roseanna Arquette, but he’d rather be swimming alone in the ocean with dolphins. The very nature of The Big Blue goes against the American and British way of thinking, it’s about the isolation caused by a burning desire for liberation, to cast off all responsibilities and earthly ties and become one with the infinite, regardless of what responsibilities bind you.
Despite being able to understand the criticism this film inspires, I don’t completely agree with it, because beyond all its ponderousness, wafer thin narrative and languid pacing, there’s also Jean Reno chewing up the scenery as the endlessly entertaining character Enzo, who brings warmth and humour and personality to every single scene he’s in. There are those beautiful Mediterranean locations that are captured so colourfully by Carlo Varini’s sumptuous cinematography that the film looks like a cartoon masquerading as live action, one which is perfectly accompanied by Eric Serra’s dreamy score. Besson’s obsession with dolphins brings its own wondrous element in the form of numerous underwater sequences where Jacques communes and dances with the graceful creatures, and the milky blue depths of the free diving sequences are extremely serene. The Big Blue never fails to whisk me away to a more glamorous world and evoke a feel-good sense of peace and wonder whenever I watch it. That quality makes it a precious commodity within Besson’s oeuvré.
The Disc: The Big Blue needs a good transfer to do its splendiferous visuals justice, and I’d say this 2.35:1 presentation just about manages to do that. The colour scheme is suitably saturated, bringing to life the deep blue of the sky and ocean while skin tones are colourful without appearing unnatural; there’s a little colour bleeding on occasion, but it’s not blatant. In general the film has a delicately textured, filmlike look with a light and soft layer of grain that deepens to a moderate or thick (but still soft) layer depending on how dark each scene is. As with the other Blu-rays in this Besson Collection the contrast and brightness appear high, with blooming whites and crushed blacks, but there’s a lot of sunlight in this film so it’s hard to say how much of this stems from the cinematography. Image clarity is pretty solid, The Big Blue exhibits that slightly softish look of an 80s film, but fine detail is solid enough without there being too many instances of noticeable edge enhancement – nor is there any obvious noise reduction in play.
There are two versions of The Big Blue crammed onto this BD-50 disc, the 168-minute extended “Version Longue” edit and a 137 Theatrical Cut (although the IMDB lists the theatrical runtime as 132-minutes, so maybe this is a slightly extended version), so the AVC encode has an understandably low average bitrate of 16.41Mbps and 18.77Mbps for the extended and theatrical versions respectively. Sure enough this means the transfers come with compression artefacts in the form of mild blocking and banding, and poorly defined grain, but it’s not too bad considering the sheer amount of HD video on the disc. There’s little to no difference in quality between the two transfers, there’s a slight difference in framing where the Theatrical Cut may show a couple more pixels of information at the top of the frame and a couple of pixels less at the bottom of the frame compared to the Version Longue, but you can apply my comments above on the transfer of the Version Longue edit to the transfer of the Theatrical Cut.
Sadly audio options amount to a French LPCM track which is of course the French dub of the film. For those unfamiliar with this film’s history, it was recorded and performed in English mostly with some Italian and French dialogue on the side. A French dub was then made which dubbed most of the English and Italian dialogue into French and only kept the English for the scenes that follow Joanna in New York. There’s an argument for the validity of either language as Besson’s intended option, but the fact that Optimum have not included the English track on this Blu-ray severely compromises this release and renders the audio section of this review null and void, because the original audio is not present on this disc. Hence I will be scoring the audio as a big fat 0/10. I sympathise with Optimum in the sense that they were probably only given French masters, but someone in the company should have been paying attention and demanded an English master as well. Maybe it’s just me on this one, but I find it completely unacceptable to release a predominantly English language film in the UK without an English track.
If you can forget about the existence of an English track then this French LPCM 2.0 track offers a rather pleasing audio presentation. In comparison to the previous Besson films in this collection the audio sounds more refined whilst maintaining a remastered smoothness with little in the way of hiss. Bass is held back a little and sounds a little soft, but it’s deep enough to drive this understated drama, likewise treble response could be better defined but remains smooth enough. The soundstage is a little restricted and doesn’t really convey the enveloping nature of the ocean sequences that overtly, but by and large this is a pretty decent 2.0 presentation that does incorporate the surrounds for both ambience and to boost the score. Audio dynamics are strong, but obviously the looped French dialogue tends to sound too high in the mix and throws the balance off a little. The most jarring nature of the French dub is the fact that it can often jump from the actor’s original recorded English delivery to a French dialogue dub, then back again to the original recorded English, over and over again in the same scene. This is particularly jarring in Rosanna Arquette’s case, who doesn’t sound like she recorded her own French dialogue. The theatrical cut comes with a solo French Dolby Digital 2.0 option, which appears to be mislabelled as English on the disc. In comparison to the LPCM track it sounds noticeably louder and has deeper and much fuzzier bass and looser treble response.
In the Extras department Optimum have included the 1989 documentary on the making of The Big Blue: L'aventure du Grand Bleu, which is certainly a big selling point for this release. The Big Blue is full of sequences where you ask yourself “how did they do that?” and was a particularly demanding shoot for Jean Reno and Jean-Marc Barr because they actually performed all their own diving sequences. This feature is essentially a video diary of the film’s production that presents candid behind the scenes footage with narration by either Besson, Reno, or Barr depending on which sequence we see being filmed. It’s an excellent making of that also doubles up as a marine documentary, as Reno and Barr talk us through their aquatic adventures when filming the free diving and dolphin sequences. Also included are a French Teaser and US Trailer, both in standard definition.
Please Note: The review disc sent to DVDTimes was mislabelled as Léon: The Professional on the disc itself (the data directory itself, not the physical cover of the disc)
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If The Last Battle maintains a timeless feel due to its post-apocalyptic setting, then Besson’s next film: Subway is very much a child of the decade it was born in - the problem most people may have is that the decade is the1980s. Most films that exude a distinctly 80s feel are generally scorned as being seriously dated, but as a child of the 80s who formed their cinematic tastes in that era I have a lot of time for Subway. Christopher Lambert plays Fred, an intensely impulsive and irrepressible thief who is on the run from a group of heavies working for a high-powered Frenchman, from whom Fred has stolen an important document. To escape the goons Fred flees into a nearby Subway system and from there blackmails the Frenchman’s wife Helena - who he has fallen in love with - whilst also becoming acquainted with a variety of colourful characters that inhabit the bustling underground labyrinth.
Is Subway style over substance? Probably, it’s certainly self-consciously and aggressively hip and stylish – the sort of film that could only be made by a young director – but it has enough style for that in itself be all the justification you need to seek it out. Despite being set in an over-populated, dingy, cramped, fluorescently lit underground subway system, Subway is a visually arresting film. Besson – teaming up again with cinematographer Carlo Varini – demonstrates his talent for creating striking compositions and using lighting in interesting ways, both of which work beautifully within his signature tracking shots where he has characters walking directly towards or away from the camera. His direction is very energetic and frequently creative, coming up with unconventional ways to present rather conventional scenarios.
There isn’t much in the way of narrative, which does hurt the pacing of the film a little as Besson tries to work a way into the closing act, but its flimsy narrative is awash with wonderfully eccentric and memorable characters, from the spiky blonde, childlike punk that is its protagonist, to the upper class princess who is inspired by Fred’s zeal to rebel from her monotonous lifestyle, to a roller-skating purse snatcher with headlights on his feet, a hulk of a man named Big Bill who uses discarded chunks of machinery to work out, and Jean Reno walking around with drumsticks looking like a very Jewish Fonzarelli. It’s these characters and Fred’s childlike amusement when interacting with them that ensures there’s more to Subway than purely aesthetic charm.
The Disc: Subway is a very 80s film and has a very filmic, 80s look on Blu-ray. This means a softish image that is awash with a rather thick and fuzzy layer of grain. The opening sequences in particular exhibit very heavy grain, but this soon settled down into a consistently rich texture. Despite the grain compression on this BD-25, AVC encoded disc is pretty good, blocking and banding is extremely minor and shouldn’t be too noticeable during regular playback. Image detail isn’t exactly award winning, so the transfer generally looks soft with fine detail lacking, but at least there are no blatant signs of artificial sharpening in play outside of the occasional use of edge enhancements. It’s possible that some noise reduction may be in work, but it’s hard to say with films from this era as they tend to look soft and exhibit wishy-washy focus (as this film does in some scenes). Contrast and brightness levels are perhaps a touch high but they feel pretty naturalistic, black levels are solid and shadow detail is pretty good. Colours similarly have a rather understated, naturalistic feel that becomes a bold palette in the more colourful sequences; colour tone is pretty neutral so skin tones tend to look a little pale.
The only audio option is a French LPCM 2.0 which offers a no thrills presentation of the original stereo soundtrack that is free from any heavy handed surround sound effects. It’s a pretty good track although it generally sounds a touch hollow and a touch harsh on the ears, thanks mostly to treble response being a little rough. Bass is loose and occasionally deep, and while this track certainly lacks the smoothness of a more contemporary audio track, the master seems nicely cleaned up and audio hiss isn’t much of a problem. All you really need to know about the audio on this disc is that dialogue is nice and audible with only a little tearing, audio dynamics are solid, and the soundstage is ok. The only extra feature on this disc is the theatrical trailer presented in standard definition.
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Luc Besson’s debut film may seem on paper like just another post-Mad Max pretender from the early 80s, but the approach is much more internal and playful than a typical post-apocalyptic action drama. What’s more the fact it plays out across ninety minutes without any real dialogue meant it was destined to be considered as yet another self-consciously arty French film. This is a bit of a shame, as The Last Battle is both a very humanistic film and extremely accessible if you have patience. Set in a desolate wasteland, Pierre Jolivet plays a character credited simply as “The Man” who escapes a ruthless local gang by building a motorised air glider from junk left behind in the remnants of civilisation. He eventually crashes near another ruined city where a scarred “Brute” is locked in a battle to break into a compound inhabited by “The Doctor”. After being brutally assaulted by The Brute, The Man escapes underground and eventually wanders through a secret entrance into the compound, where he strikes up a friendship with The Doctor that brings companionship into their lives.
The Last Battle establishes Besson firstly as a talented visualist, the whole visual style and cinematography of film belies its low budget origins and in particular Besson uses the depth of field and screen composition to excellent effect in the infrequent action sequences. The approach to narrative is extremely minimalistic, the fact that man has lost the ability to speak means there is no explanation for why the world is in ruins nor is there a tremendous amount of insight into the motivation of the characters. The Man’s primary goal in life is female companionship and the opening scene effectively establishes the desperation and futility of life in a barren world as we first meet The Man as he’s going at it with a blow-up doll which subsequently bursts. Besson presents the surviving human race as having become primal and savage– even The Man will kill to achieve his goals – but he also expresses the Joie de vivre of The Man when his environment conjures up some pleasant surprises. What redeems the protagonist and gives the film a heartfelt core is the friendship formed between The Man and The Doctor and devotion to amenities, which is genuinely poignant when placed in the context of such a hostile world. At 90 minutes long The Last Battle may be a touch overlong, but it’s far from boring.
The Disc: Optimum don’t have the best track record when it comes to Blu-ray, but I can’t see too many people having any serious issues with this 1080p AVC transfer. You’d be hard pressed to tell the film’s over 25yrs old now as the image is reasonably detailed for its age and has a rather moderate, soft layer of grain with no signs of noise reduction in play. The black and white cinematography looks gorgeous but contrast does seem a touch too high, with whites appearing hot and blacks a little crushed, so shadow detail isn’t the greatest around. At first I thought the blooming whites could’ve been deliberate to give a sense of intense sunlight (and it may be for many of the exterior sequences) but dark interior scenes are also affected.
The film is spread across a BD-25 disc with an average bit rate of 25.02Mbps and the AVC encode is solid enough, there is minor blocking and banding issues but they don’t really make their presence felt much in standard viewing. Edge Enhancement does make its presence felt on a couple of occasions, but it’s pretty minor. Print damage is very minimal and the image is impressively clean, but there are times when brightness flickering can be seen and other times when a slight colour tinge appears in intermitting frames. There are also sporadic appearances of a thin, light grey vertical line down the left hand edge of the frame and a thin reddish horizontal line across the bottom; both are too slight to distract.
Audio is a French LPCM 2.0 track that sounds pretty good indeed for an early 80s recording, it’s impressively clean and while bass may be a touch loose and hollow there’s still a satisfying depth to the sound - Treble isn’t bad either. The soundstage isn’t particularly expressive, mostly because the stereo track is encoded for surround with the rears reproducing the same sound as the fronts, but each element of the audio is well defined and Eric Serra’s score sounds quite good. Dialogue is also reasonably crisp and audible. The only extra on the disc is a trailer that is presented in non-anamorphic standard definition. Optional English subtitles are provided, but you don’t need them.
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Angel-A
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
Two outsiders: a man and a woman, who are two sides of the same coin and manage to resolve their despondency through the special bond they forge. This is certainly very familiar territory for Luc Besson, and yet in some ways Angel-A feels like a Besson film that isn’t quite a Besson film – perhaps because his regular French cast is missing and perhaps because this is the first of Besson’s films to not be scored by Eric Serra. While the cast and music may seem unfamiliar, the wit and visual splendour is distinctly Luc Besson and Angel-A looks fantastic, with Paris set up as a character in itself and the director/cameraman making doing is best to create a picturesque video postcard of some of the most stunning locations in the French capital.
Whereas Besson’s previous films were grounded in reality and a grim inevitability, this post-Fifth Element drama weaves a tale of hope through a fantastical setting. The big twist surrounding Angela’s appearance in André’s life is pretty obvious from the start, but when it does happen the cynic in me groaned a little at the obvious undercurrent of male fantasy fulfilment of having an altruistic beauty appearing in a man’s life, offering him her mind, body, and soul and kicking ass when commanded to. This feeling was ultimately overridden by the facetious charm of the script, along with the sincerity of the lead characters and the odd couple relationship they form. Jamel Debbouze in particular puts in a nicely layered performance and he has a rather impish puppy-dog appearance that makes him impossible to hate. Rie Rasmussen is also elegant and playfully assertive as Angela.
Angel-A is not quite as involving as the likes of Léon and The Big Blue, a little less talking and a little more inertia might have helped the drama settle a little; but after the inconsistency of Besson’s Hollywood films it’s a huge relief to see that, after more than two decades as a filmmaker, he’s still capable of approaching the exact same themes and very familiar characters and craft a thoroughly engaging drama.
The Disc: Angel-A is Besson’s first black and white film since The Last Battle, and like The Last Battle Optimum have slapped it onto a BD-25 with an average bitrate of 25Mbps. This means that in general the AVC encoding is stronger on this title than most of the other films in the Luc Besson Collection, although there are still signs of compression noise which mostly comes in the all-too-familiar form of some subtle but noticeable banding. Grain too could probably be better defined, but there’s so little grain in the transfer that you don’t really notice it anyway. The film was shot in colour then converted to black and white, which is a process that I always feel results in poor shadow detail, which is the case with Angel-A. Contrast feels reasonably natural and brightness levels seem a little low; blacks look crushed but whites seem nicely weighted. The grayscale image looks pretty good, although there’s just a hint of blue showing through. This isn’t a sharp transfer nor does it feel tremendously soft either, obviously I can’t say for sure given the lack of grain and softness, but it doesn’t feel like any heavy handed noise reduction is in play either, nor could I spot any edge enhancements.
For audio you’ve got the option of the original French in either DTS-HD MA or LPCM 2.0, naturally the DTS-HD track is the way to go here, which offers a very pleasing presentation. Dialogue is extremely clear throughout most the film and there are a number of scenes where the clarity of the dialogue appears almost as if it was looped, but I think there may be a little intentional fading of the environmental sounds to get a slightly surreal sound - plus the location shooting around places like Pont Alexandre III results in a lot of echo. The soundstage in general is nicely expressive and brings the numerous Parisian locations effectively to life, the front stage is wide and defined, while the rears do incorporate a satisfying amount of environmental sounds. Bass and treble response are very solid and each element of the sound is brought forth with clarity. In particular Anja Garbarek’s jazzy score sounds great whenever it takes over. In comparison the LPCM 2.0 track sounds restrained and noticeably less defined in both bass and ambience, and the score certainly has less depth to it.
Optimum have included a handful of extras, the highlight being the 26-minute Making Of which incorporates behind the scenes footage with sit down interviews with Jamel Debbouze and Rie Rasmussen. Considering Luc Besson has long shunned extra features like this it’s surprising how much footage there is of him at work, offering even more time with the auteur than the feature-length documentary on the making of The Big Blue, although it’s Jemal and his playful personality that dominates. There’s also a featurette that offers a glimpse at the making of Anja Garbarek’s score and music video for the film, but it offers little beyond rather monotonous shots of various musicians recording their parts. The aforementioned Music Video and a Theatrical Trailer (both in standard definition) complete the extras.
| Film: 6/10 Runtime: 90mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 7/10 2.34:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 8/10 French DTS-HD MA 5.1, French LPCM 2.0 Subtitles: English* * Available on Extra Features | Extras: 5/10 The Making of Angel-A (26m:50s) The Making of the Music (13m:53s) Music Video (03m:28s) Trailer (01m:47s) There are 2 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
 £7.98 |  £7.99 |  £9.99 |  £10.85 |
Léon
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
After hitting it big internationally with Nikita, Luc Besson decided to return to the world of professional killers for his first film that was set in the United States: Léon. Léon’s reclusive life as the top hitman for a local mob boss is turned upside down when his neighbour’s young daughter: Mathilda knocks on his door after the brutal murder of her family by Stansfield, the head of a corrupt police ring. Taking in Mathilda, Léon finds his life upturned by the increasingly assertive, pubescent girl and it’s not long before he’s persuaded to teach her the arts of his profession – which will soon bring them both into the path of Stansfield and his goons once again.
Besson’s gift as a maker of action thrillers is his ability to create fresh idiosyncratic characters and develop them through inventive character arcs. In Nikita he gave us a criminal junkie who is trained to become a governmental assassin. In Léon he gives us a fidgety, milk guzzling, Italian plant lover who conducts his business in an overcoat, round shades and a small wooly hat. In Mathilda we have a beaten, precocious child/wannabe seductress, and the villainous Stansfield is an extremely entertaining pill-popping psychotic with a penchant for classical music. On characterisation alone, Léon is a very engaging film – more so than your average action flick – but it is with the longer “Version Integralé” edit, which expands the relationship between Léon and Mathilda by developing their bond through a series of both awkward and pitch-black scenarios that the film really becomes something special.
Léon is probably the culmination of Luc Besson’s work as a filmmaker, it takes all his previous themes about isolation and awkward relationships and manages to portray them humanistically within the context of a violent action thriller. In Léon we have a similar soul to the unnamed protagonist of The Last Battle - someone who is completely alone and stuck in a monotonous routine - but also someone like Fred and Jacques in Subway and The Big Blue who is scarred by a tragedy in his childhood that has stunted his growth emotionally. Unlike these characters Léon’s not looking to express himself or become untethered from the world around him, instead he succeeds in committing to a real human relationship and grabbing a chance at redemption through his friendship with Mathilda. This makes Léon a far more empathetic character than any of Besson’s previous protagonists.
Mathilda represents the wild and impulsive outsider we see in Fred and Nikita, but when placed in the context of an abused child the emotional naiveté and reckless rebellion seems far more fitting. Also by developing his first truly antagonistic villain since The Last Battle with the character of Stansfield, and ramping up the action quota beyond that of Nikita, Besson finally resolved the narrative issues that plagued his previous work. The director is not the only one on top form either, Eric Serra’s score goes beyond the mood pieces he’d mostly created in his previous collaborations with Besson, and now seems to be channelling the soul and intense loneliness of the central character, creating a beautifully evocative accompaniment to the film.
The Disc: The French and German Blu-ray releases of Léon warned us that the hi-def masters that are currently being used for this film leave a lot to be desired, and sure enough this release from Optimum bears all the hallmarks of an early high definition master: The transfer is rife with edge enhancements and the contrast and brightness levels have been completely blown out, giving the image a stark look that I find rather harsh on the eyes and not remotely appealing at all. The whole look of the film is white hot, any texture or material that can reflect any light at all is in danger of blooming like hell from one scene to the next, and people tend to look like they’re standing directly under a spotlight. Aside from the obvious loss of detail we get from such heavy handed clipping (the greyscale has been totally destroyed) the brightness-boosted colours never seem completely perfect either, resulting in a transfer that feels just a tiny bit poorly saturated, with skintones appearing slightly pallid. Don’t get me wrong, in general the colour scheme is appealing enough and a noticeable improvement over the DVD releases, but at the same time the palette seems slightly restricted compared to subtle gradation of colours you usually find in High-Definition.
Elsewhere the image is a little more successful, detail isn’t fantastic but it is at least an improvement over standard definition, and naturally black levels are resoundingly deep and only falter in a few shots. Grain varies from a light and fuzzy layer throughout most the film to a deeper and sharper texture in scenes with low lighting – in particular the raid on The Fat Man’s house at the start. As with The Big Blue both versions of the film are presented on a separate encode with a low bitrate AVC compression that averages out at 19.33Mbps for the Version Integralé and 18.47Mbps for the Theatrical Cut. As with The Big Blue the compression is better than you’d expect for a BD-50 with over 4hrs of HD video on it, but there is some compression noise here and there - as well as some very noticeable banding at a couple of points in the film. Mostly the low bit rate makes its presence known in the diffuseness of the grain, which robs the transfer of a completely film-like appearance. Also in correlation with The Big Blue the transfers of the two edits of the film look pretty much the same, with only bitrate differences on offer.
Audio options are a choice of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 or English LPCM 2.0 for each version of the film. Unfortunately for the Version Integralé edit the 5.1 DTS-HD track sounds like it may have been struck from a 2.0 source, as it sounds to my ears to be pretty much identical to the LPCM 2.0 track. For the most part this is no bad thing, as the 2.0 track offers a decent audio presentation; bass is pretty deep and only a touch loose while treble response is a little on the harsh side, lending a rather shrill feel to the dialogue. In general the audio dynamics are good, but dialogue sounds high in the mix and exhibits audible hiss. Unlike in Nikita the gunfire in Léon sounds more authentic and has enough depth here, but the volume is noticeably low when action kicks in - almost as if the action sequences have been slightly compressed dynamically. Thankfully Eric Serra’s score does not sound compressed, it sounds refined and detailed. The soundstage is solid, nothing more, there’s not a tremendous amount of directionality in the fronts but the rears do get used in the action sequences.
When you switch over to the Theatrical Cut the difference between the DTS tracks become night and day, the dialogue sounds very similar - it’s still high in the mix - but when the action kicks in the bass can really be felt, the surrounds come truly to life and the volume of the action is satisfyingly high. The LPCM 2.0 track on the Theatrical Cut is pretty close to its DTS counterpart, just with weaker bass - but it’s still noticeably more bassy than the LPCM track on the Version Integralé. Either way you look at it, the DTS-HD track on the Version Integralé cut sounds poor next to the corresponding track on the Theatrical Cut, and may be all the reason fans need to seek the French or German BD releases over the Optimum (not that I’m saying those releases sound any better, I’ve never owned them).
Extra Features come directly from the R1 Columbia Tristar Deluxe Edition DVD, there’s a 25-minute 10 Year Retrospective featurette that features input from pretty much everyone involved in the film bar Besson and Oldman. It’s too short to offer any real insight into the film’s production, but there is at least a satisfying amount of information shared. An interview each with Natalie Portman and Jean Renó are a little more involving but again too short to really go into depth, at least it’s great to finally see Reno on camera talking about his career with Besson. A standard definition (and poor quality) trailer is also provided.
| Film: 9/10 Runtime: 132mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 5/10 2.35:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 4/10 English DTS-HD MA, English LPCM 2.0 Subtitles: English | Extras: 5/10 Léon: Theatrical Cut (110m:12s) 10 Year Retrospective (25m:09s) Natalie Portman: Starting Young (13m:49s) Jean Reno: The Road to Léon (12m:24s) Trailer (01m:48s) There are 11 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
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Atlantis
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
Backing up the obvious visual appeal of the piece is a diverse and evocative score from Eric Serra, which plays for the entire runtime of the film and so naturally sees the Besson regular branch out from his previous work for the director and work with symphonies to deliver a soundtrack that flits between a wide range of music genres. From Middle Eastern riffs, to opera, to funk infused rock, to pop music, to ethereal choir singing, Serra consistently finds the right sound to match each image and proves a vital component to Atlantis’ soothing appeal.
The Disc: Now, I do say that Atlantis offers a level of detail and colour clarity that you wouldn’t find in your average sea life TV show, but compared to any ordinary earth bound 35mm film Atlantis certainly looks noticeably soft, and colours naturally foggy. Obviously the underwater cinematography limits just how “hi-def” this image is going to look, certainly it’s the softest of all the films in the Luc Besson Collection, and contrast and brightness levels are easily the lowest of the collection as well. It’s hard to say if any clipping is in action here, the sequences that look up towards the surface of the sea/ocean definitely bloom where the sun hits the water, but that seems pretty natural. There’s a whole chapter of the film set in the sea at night, but obviously because of the lamps used to light the sea life, blacks are never completely black - nor do shadows look that deep in the deep water shots of octopodes that precedes the night section. I can’t say the black levels look that unnaturally low though. Colours likewise are obviously affected by the underwater cinematography, the film is all blue and green tones and most of the sequences have a diffuse, foggy light to them which gives the blues a slightly greyish quality, whereas other scenes exhibit a sharper, more lavish display of colour. This isn’t a vibrantly coloured film and the BD transfer reflects that reasonably well.
So far, every individual transfer in the Luc Besson Collection has received a rather low bitrate AVC encode so that each version of the films in question fit on a BD-25 layer. Atlantis is a short film at just under 80-minutes, but for the life of me I cannot see the logic in using a bitrate with an average as low as 20.13Mbps on such a short, murky film. They could have nearly doubled that and still fit the feature on a BD-25. As a result there is noise, most noticeably as banding present throughout. It’s nothing worse than any other title in the collection, but still somewhat excessive for this film. Also with the low bitrate this transfer exhibits poorly defined, fuzzy grain which ranges from light to moderate in the darker sequences. At least the image feels relatively untampered, hard to say whether noise reduction is being used, but edge enhancements are rarely used and on the one or two occasions they are, they’re so slight you shouldn’t really notice them too much in regular playback.
Shown theatrically in Dolby Stereo SR, the French LPCM 2.0 audio track seems to be a pretty decent reproduction. It’s the best of all the LPCM 2.0 tracks in the Luc Besson Collection and offers a smooth presentation with bass that is fairly deep without sounding too hollow, and very solid treble response. What’s more the soundstage is reasonably expressive and enveloping, incorporating some solid use of the surrounds through the score. Audio dynamics are good, so each element of Serra’s score is nicely defined, and aside from a little tearing in the higher notes, the audio is pretty clean. The sole extra feature on this disc is a French Theatrical Trailer which is actually a pretty cool behind-the-scenes snippet that shows Besson descending into the water from a helicopter, complete with his diving equipment and bulky underwater camera; it is shown in standard definition.
Please Note: As with The Big Blue, the review disc of Atlantis that was sent to us had the data directory on it mislabelled as Angel-A.
| Film: 7/10 Runtime: 79mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 6/10 2.35:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 8/10 French LPCM 2.0 Subtitles: English* Available on Extra Features | Extras: 1/10 Theatrical Trailer (02m:08s) No user comments, why not be the first? Screenshots: |
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Nikita
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
It’s hard to imagine the impact Nikita had on US action fans back in 1990, it was one of the films that obliterated the established conventions of the 80s of the self-aware, ultra-macho flippant hero and ushered in a new era of internally conflicted, sensitive action leads. The heavy influences on the action sequences from Asian cinema also pre-dated Tarantino and really stood out in a time when Asian “Heroic Bloodshed” gunplays had yet to be exposed to the Western mainstream (that would happen a couple of years later with Hard Boiled). Comic book films were also few and far between back then, which made the comic book “origin story” nature of Nikita’s transformation from wild, untamed junkie to clinical, cultured assassin stand out even more. It was My Fair Lady with guns; Besson even cast an Audrey Hepburn-esque gamine as the lead with Anne Parillaud, and Tchéky Karyo as her effortlessly suave Pygmalion.
There’s a good argument to be made for Nikita as one of the most important action films of the 90s as far as Hollywood is concerned, it’s certainly been mimicked enough – indeed Besson himself revisited a number of its ideas for Léon – but beyond its obvious influence Nikita is simply a good action drama, albeit one that might seem a little less groundbreaking and lazily paced by today’s high-octane standards. There are some great set pieces in Nikita where Besson creates unexpected contexts for action, like the birthday celebration between Bob and Nikita in a swanky French restaurant that is actually a front for her first mission as an assassin, and there’s amusing irony in how Besson bureaucratises the assassin business, with the gunmen at the lowest ebb of the command chain not knowing what is going on with their missions half the time. It’s certainly a far cry from the unemotional automaton assassins that usually inhabit action thrillers.
At the same time there are also the usual narrative weaknesses we find from Besson’s scripts in the middle act. At just under two hours the film feels a good 20 minutes too long, mostly because the love story between Nikita and Marco in the second half is nowhere near as interesting as the unrequited romance between Nikita and Bob in the first half. Besson never satisfyingly conveys the strain that leading a double life takes on Nikita’s relationship, nor is there much action in this double life to make up for the slow drama. Luckily things pick up pace considerably in the closing act when Nikita receives a more involving mission and Jean Reno arrives in an iconic role that injects some much needed life and humour into the film.
The Disc: Presented in 2.35:1 Nikita generally looks slightly better than the previous films in The Luc Besson Collection, but it still falls slightly short of the transfer on the Sony US blu-ray. It’s a solid transfer, the image is generally detailed with close ups showing a pleasing amount of fine detail and a vibrant colour scheme that remains bold and expressive without losing the gritty feel of Thierry Arbogast’s cinematography. Skintones are a little pale and contrast/brightness levels appear high, with whites regularly blooming. Black levels are solid and consistent, although blacks do appear slightly crushed, but shadow detail is good. Grain is kept to a light, fuzzy layer that deepens in darker scenes, but the texture of the grain is compromised by the low bit rate of the AVC encode - which averages out at 20.23Mbps - resulting in blocking. Edge Enhancements can also be seen from time to time. In comparison to the US BD the Optimum disc is a touch brighter and a tiny bit softer, with grain in particular being much sharper and better defined on the US release. Colours are also slightly less saturated on the Optimum release.
Audio comes in the form of a French LPCM 2.0 track which offers a solid, no-thrills audio presentation. Again we’re seeing a slight increase in clarity over the previous films in the Luc Besson Collection; in general Nikita sounds clean and pretty smooth as far as treble response is concerned. Bass levels are pretty solid and add depth to the dialogue and score, but the various gun shootouts in Nikita have the kind of sound design you can expect from a bunch of Frenchmen who don’t have a habit of shooting guns off, so the gunshots hardly sound like the weapons that are actually in use, with handguns sounding more like elephant guns. With this in mind the bass in the action sequences is too booming and too hollow and does pull you out of the film a little. Other than that niggling point audio is hard to fault, sound dynamics are strong and the soundstage is ok, but perhaps not as expressive or enveloping as fans will expect (especially in the rears). The Sony BD comes with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 remix which may be an important selling point for fans, but I don’t think you’re being too short changed by this LPCM track, the film was originally shown in Dolby Stereo SR afterall. Optional subtitles are provided in English, and I can confirm that they are not dubtitles.
The only two substantial extra features come courtesy of the MGM R1 Special Edition DVD, the first is a 20-minute Making Of featurette which is a retrospective talking heads piece with the main cast that is rendered rather pointless by the fact that they mostly stick to explaining this completely uncomplicated film. The Sound of Nikita is a 5-minute interview with Eric Serra on the film’s sound; it’s more involving than the Making Of, but far too short to offer much. Aside from the theatrical trailer the other extras on this disc seem to be all new featurettes, but are in reality just incomprehensible 33-second snippets that were left out of the Making Of featurette. It appears they exist purely to give the impression of a longer list of extra features.
| Film: 7/10 Runtime: 117mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 7/10 2.35:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 7/10 French LPCM 2.0 Subtitles: English* Available on Extra Features | Extras: 3/10 Making Of Nikita (20m:37s) Karyo on Besson (00m:26s) The Sound of Nikita (04m:48s) The Bedroom (00m:33s) Training Room (00m:33s) Vanity Room (00m:33s) Trailer (02m:22s) No user comments, why not be the first? Screenshots: |
£7.98 | £8.85 | £8.85 | £9.89 |
The Big Blue
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
The Big Blue was going to be the film that would crack the US market and make Besson a global superstar. It did make him a global name, just not in America, where audiences were treated to a cut, re-edited, re-scored version. It’s hard to say if this was the sole reason The Big Blue failed in the states, as to this day the film continues to split audience opinion. I can understand why it alienates certain viewers, it is after all a near 3-hour sports film/character study where the sport in question involves people swimming directly down, then floating directly up, with no real insight into this highly technical process given beyond the fact that you need to hold your breath for a really long time. The central role of Jacques is also a bit of a head scratcher, he spends his time travelling from gorgeous location to gorgeous location, winning competitions and boinking Roseanna Arquette, but he’d rather be swimming alone in the ocean with dolphins. The very nature of The Big Blue goes against the American and British way of thinking, it’s about the isolation caused by a burning desire for liberation, to cast off all responsibilities and earthly ties and become one with the infinite, regardless of what responsibilities bind you.
Despite being able to understand the criticism this film inspires, I don’t completely agree with it, because beyond all its ponderousness, wafer thin narrative and languid pacing, there’s also Jean Reno chewing up the scenery as the endlessly entertaining character Enzo, who brings warmth and humour and personality to every single scene he’s in. There are those beautiful Mediterranean locations that are captured so colourfully by Carlo Varini’s sumptuous cinematography that the film looks like a cartoon masquerading as live action, one which is perfectly accompanied by Eric Serra’s dreamy score. Besson’s obsession with dolphins brings its own wondrous element in the form of numerous underwater sequences where Jacques communes and dances with the graceful creatures, and the milky blue depths of the free diving sequences are extremely serene. The Big Blue never fails to whisk me away to a more glamorous world and evoke a feel-good sense of peace and wonder whenever I watch it. That quality makes it a precious commodity within Besson’s oeuvré.
The Disc: The Big Blue needs a good transfer to do its splendiferous visuals justice, and I’d say this 2.35:1 presentation just about manages to do that. The colour scheme is suitably saturated, bringing to life the deep blue of the sky and ocean while skin tones are colourful without appearing unnatural; there’s a little colour bleeding on occasion, but it’s not blatant. In general the film has a delicately textured, filmlike look with a light and soft layer of grain that deepens to a moderate or thick (but still soft) layer depending on how dark each scene is. As with the other Blu-rays in this Besson Collection the contrast and brightness appear high, with blooming whites and crushed blacks, but there’s a lot of sunlight in this film so it’s hard to say how much of this stems from the cinematography. Image clarity is pretty solid, The Big Blue exhibits that slightly softish look of an 80s film, but fine detail is solid enough without there being too many instances of noticeable edge enhancement – nor is there any obvious noise reduction in play.
There are two versions of The Big Blue crammed onto this BD-50 disc, the 168-minute extended “Version Longue” edit and a 137 Theatrical Cut (although the IMDB lists the theatrical runtime as 132-minutes, so maybe this is a slightly extended version), so the AVC encode has an understandably low average bitrate of 16.41Mbps and 18.77Mbps for the extended and theatrical versions respectively. Sure enough this means the transfers come with compression artefacts in the form of mild blocking and banding, and poorly defined grain, but it’s not too bad considering the sheer amount of HD video on the disc. There’s little to no difference in quality between the two transfers, there’s a slight difference in framing where the Theatrical Cut may show a couple more pixels of information at the top of the frame and a couple of pixels less at the bottom of the frame compared to the Version Longue, but you can apply my comments above on the transfer of the Version Longue edit to the transfer of the Theatrical Cut.
Sadly audio options amount to a French LPCM track which is of course the French dub of the film. For those unfamiliar with this film’s history, it was recorded and performed in English mostly with some Italian and French dialogue on the side. A French dub was then made which dubbed most of the English and Italian dialogue into French and only kept the English for the scenes that follow Joanna in New York. There’s an argument for the validity of either language as Besson’s intended option, but the fact that Optimum have not included the English track on this Blu-ray severely compromises this release and renders the audio section of this review null and void, because the original audio is not present on this disc. Hence I will be scoring the audio as a big fat 0/10. I sympathise with Optimum in the sense that they were probably only given French masters, but someone in the company should have been paying attention and demanded an English master as well. Maybe it’s just me on this one, but I find it completely unacceptable to release a predominantly English language film in the UK without an English track.
If you can forget about the existence of an English track then this French LPCM 2.0 track offers a rather pleasing audio presentation. In comparison to the previous Besson films in this collection the audio sounds more refined whilst maintaining a remastered smoothness with little in the way of hiss. Bass is held back a little and sounds a little soft, but it’s deep enough to drive this understated drama, likewise treble response could be better defined but remains smooth enough. The soundstage is a little restricted and doesn’t really convey the enveloping nature of the ocean sequences that overtly, but by and large this is a pretty decent 2.0 presentation that does incorporate the surrounds for both ambience and to boost the score. Audio dynamics are strong, but obviously the looped French dialogue tends to sound too high in the mix and throws the balance off a little. The most jarring nature of the French dub is the fact that it can often jump from the actor’s original recorded English delivery to a French dialogue dub, then back again to the original recorded English, over and over again in the same scene. This is particularly jarring in Rosanna Arquette’s case, who doesn’t sound like she recorded her own French dialogue. The theatrical cut comes with a solo French Dolby Digital 2.0 option, which appears to be mislabelled as English on the disc. In comparison to the LPCM track it sounds noticeably louder and has deeper and much fuzzier bass and looser treble response.
In the Extras department Optimum have included the 1989 documentary on the making of The Big Blue: L'aventure du Grand Bleu, which is certainly a big selling point for this release. The Big Blue is full of sequences where you ask yourself “how did they do that?” and was a particularly demanding shoot for Jean Reno and Jean-Marc Barr because they actually performed all their own diving sequences. This feature is essentially a video diary of the film’s production that presents candid behind the scenes footage with narration by either Besson, Reno, or Barr depending on which sequence we see being filmed. It’s an excellent making of that also doubles up as a marine documentary, as Reno and Barr talk us through their aquatic adventures when filming the free diving and dolphin sequences. Also included are a French Teaser and US Trailer, both in standard definition.
Please Note: The review disc sent to DVDTimes was mislabelled as Léon: The Professional on the disc itself (the data directory itself, not the physical cover of the disc)
| Film: 8/10 Runtime: 168mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 7/10 2.35:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 7/10 French LPCM 2.0 (Extended Cut) French DD2.0 (Theatrical Cut) Subtitles: English* Available on Extra Features | Extras: 8/10 The Big Blue: Theatrical Cut (137m:26s) L'aventure du Grand Bleu (97m:00s) French Teaser (00m:43s) U.S Theatrical Trailer (01m:47s) There are 4 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
£9.98 | £10.85 | £10.85 | £10.89 |
Subway
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
Is Subway style over substance? Probably, it’s certainly self-consciously and aggressively hip and stylish – the sort of film that could only be made by a young director – but it has enough style for that in itself be all the justification you need to seek it out. Despite being set in an over-populated, dingy, cramped, fluorescently lit underground subway system, Subway is a visually arresting film. Besson – teaming up again with cinematographer Carlo Varini – demonstrates his talent for creating striking compositions and using lighting in interesting ways, both of which work beautifully within his signature tracking shots where he has characters walking directly towards or away from the camera. His direction is very energetic and frequently creative, coming up with unconventional ways to present rather conventional scenarios.
There isn’t much in the way of narrative, which does hurt the pacing of the film a little as Besson tries to work a way into the closing act, but its flimsy narrative is awash with wonderfully eccentric and memorable characters, from the spiky blonde, childlike punk that is its protagonist, to the upper class princess who is inspired by Fred’s zeal to rebel from her monotonous lifestyle, to a roller-skating purse snatcher with headlights on his feet, a hulk of a man named Big Bill who uses discarded chunks of machinery to work out, and Jean Reno walking around with drumsticks looking like a very Jewish Fonzarelli. It’s these characters and Fred’s childlike amusement when interacting with them that ensures there’s more to Subway than purely aesthetic charm.
The Disc: Subway is a very 80s film and has a very filmic, 80s look on Blu-ray. This means a softish image that is awash with a rather thick and fuzzy layer of grain. The opening sequences in particular exhibit very heavy grain, but this soon settled down into a consistently rich texture. Despite the grain compression on this BD-25, AVC encoded disc is pretty good, blocking and banding is extremely minor and shouldn’t be too noticeable during regular playback. Image detail isn’t exactly award winning, so the transfer generally looks soft with fine detail lacking, but at least there are no blatant signs of artificial sharpening in play outside of the occasional use of edge enhancements. It’s possible that some noise reduction may be in work, but it’s hard to say with films from this era as they tend to look soft and exhibit wishy-washy focus (as this film does in some scenes). Contrast and brightness levels are perhaps a touch high but they feel pretty naturalistic, black levels are solid and shadow detail is pretty good. Colours similarly have a rather understated, naturalistic feel that becomes a bold palette in the more colourful sequences; colour tone is pretty neutral so skin tones tend to look a little pale.
The only audio option is a French LPCM 2.0 which offers a no thrills presentation of the original stereo soundtrack that is free from any heavy handed surround sound effects. It’s a pretty good track although it generally sounds a touch hollow and a touch harsh on the ears, thanks mostly to treble response being a little rough. Bass is loose and occasionally deep, and while this track certainly lacks the smoothness of a more contemporary audio track, the master seems nicely cleaned up and audio hiss isn’t much of a problem. All you really need to know about the audio on this disc is that dialogue is nice and audible with only a little tearing, audio dynamics are solid, and the soundstage is ok. The only extra feature on this disc is the theatrical trailer presented in standard definition.
| Film: 7/10 Runtime: 102mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 7/10 2.35:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 7/10 French LPCM 2.0 Subtitles: English* Available on Extra Features | Extras: 1/10 Theatrical Trailer (01m:57s) There are 8 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
£6.85 | £6.98 | £7.85 | £7.89 |
The Last Battle
Reviewer: Matt Shingleton
The Last Battle establishes Besson firstly as a talented visualist, the whole visual style and cinematography of film belies its low budget origins and in particular Besson uses the depth of field and screen composition to excellent effect in the infrequent action sequences. The approach to narrative is extremely minimalistic, the fact that man has lost the ability to speak means there is no explanation for why the world is in ruins nor is there a tremendous amount of insight into the motivation of the characters. The Man’s primary goal in life is female companionship and the opening scene effectively establishes the desperation and futility of life in a barren world as we first meet The Man as he’s going at it with a blow-up doll which subsequently bursts. Besson presents the surviving human race as having become primal and savage– even The Man will kill to achieve his goals – but he also expresses the Joie de vivre of The Man when his environment conjures up some pleasant surprises. What redeems the protagonist and gives the film a heartfelt core is the friendship formed between The Man and The Doctor and devotion to amenities, which is genuinely poignant when placed in the context of such a hostile world. At 90 minutes long The Last Battle may be a touch overlong, but it’s far from boring.
The Disc: Optimum don’t have the best track record when it comes to Blu-ray, but I can’t see too many people having any serious issues with this 1080p AVC transfer. You’d be hard pressed to tell the film’s over 25yrs old now as the image is reasonably detailed for its age and has a rather moderate, soft layer of grain with no signs of noise reduction in play. The black and white cinematography looks gorgeous but contrast does seem a touch too high, with whites appearing hot and blacks a little crushed, so shadow detail isn’t the greatest around. At first I thought the blooming whites could’ve been deliberate to give a sense of intense sunlight (and it may be for many of the exterior sequences) but dark interior scenes are also affected.
The film is spread across a BD-25 disc with an average bit rate of 25.02Mbps and the AVC encode is solid enough, there is minor blocking and banding issues but they don’t really make their presence felt much in standard viewing. Edge Enhancement does make its presence felt on a couple of occasions, but it’s pretty minor. Print damage is very minimal and the image is impressively clean, but there are times when brightness flickering can be seen and other times when a slight colour tinge appears in intermitting frames. There are also sporadic appearances of a thin, light grey vertical line down the left hand edge of the frame and a thin reddish horizontal line across the bottom; both are too slight to distract.
Audio is a French LPCM 2.0 track that sounds pretty good indeed for an early 80s recording, it’s impressively clean and while bass may be a touch loose and hollow there’s still a satisfying depth to the sound - Treble isn’t bad either. The soundstage isn’t particularly expressive, mostly because the stereo track is encoded for surround with the rears reproducing the same sound as the fronts, but each element of the audio is well defined and Eric Serra’s score sounds quite good. Dialogue is also reasonably crisp and audible. The only extra on the disc is a trailer that is presented in non-anamorphic standard definition. Optional English subtitles are provided, but you don’t need them.
| Film: 6/10 Runtime: 92mins Distributor: Optimum World Release Date: 14th September 2009 Disc Country: United Kingdom Region: B Video: 8/10 2.35:1, MPEG-4 AVC, 1080P Audio: 7/10 French LPCM 2.0 Subtitles: English* Available on Extra Features | Extras: 1/10 Trailer (01m:57s) There are 2 comments. Have your say. Screenshots: |
£9.98 | £9.99 | £10.85 | £10.85 |