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Sunday, November 15, 2009

BD impressions: District 13/District 13: Ultimatum

3:49 PM / BD Impressions / 5 Comments

Nobody makes films quite like Luc Besson. Well, okay, "makes" is a bit of a stretch in the case of these two films, given that he didn't actually direct them but rather, like Danny the Dog, the Transporter movies and countless others, wrote and produced them while leaving the directing duties to various up-and-coming French filmmakers. Still, these films all bear his unmistakable touch, leaving me in little doubt as to who was ultimately calling the shots. 2004's District 13 (Banlieue 13) and its 2009 sequel, District 13: Ultimatum, are light on character development but heavy on the action: as the blurb on the back of the box puts it, "No wires, no special effects, no limits." You're not expected to regard these films as high art, but they're consistently exhilarating, without a single moment of tedium between them, and that impresses me lot more than a "worthy" film with a whole lot of filler stretched out to three hours (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I'm looking at you).

They are, of course, completely ridiculous (and can you get much more ridiculous than having Arabs, Chinese, Afro-Caribbeans, Mexicans and neo-Nazis joining forces to take down a corrupt government regime?), but so what? Of the pair of movies, the first is by far the better, given its clarity of purpose. By comparison, District 13: Ultimatum suffers a little from an overly convoluted plot with several disparate strands that take a while to unravel and eventually come together. Come together they do, however, and the result is a terrifically entertaining pair of Gallic popcorn movies with more implausible (but nonetheless completely practical) stunts than you can shake a baguette at.

Image quality: I'm going to take each film in turn, given the night and day differences in image quality between them.

District 13 initially showed up on BD in the US in April 2007 from Magnolia, under the title of District B13. It wasn't a particularly impressive release, consisting of an MPEG-2 encode of a mediocre-looking master. Perhaps equally frustratingly, the only subtitles includes were captions corresponding to the English dub, which in addition to buggering up the dialogue something rotten included sound effect cues, which after a while made the deplorable English dub seem like a worthy alternative. For Momentum's UK release, proper English subtitles (translating the French dialogue) have been provided, but the VC-1 encode looks roughly the same as its American counterpart. The image has been heavily noise reduced, and while grain remains visible throughout, it doesn't behave naturally, smearing and trailing during camera movement. The NR also results in some noticeable instances of the sort of DNR artefact normally associated with animation (see Example 2). Detail is not the worst I've seen, but it generally looks pretty underwhelming, particularly in wide shots, where everything takes on a smudged quality and ringing becomes quite pronounced. Serviceable at best.

Then along comes District 13: Ultimatum, and all my complaints instantly evaporate. This is a terrific-looking disc, filled with detail, natural grain and expertly handled compression. Director Patrick Allesandrin's shooting style is more cinematic, less rough and ready than Pierre Morel's on the first film, but the massive improvements cannot solely be attributed to the change of director. District 13: Ultimatum's transfer is much better all round, to the extent that I can't come up with anything negative to say about it whatsoever. Just sit back and enjoy this rich, film-like image.

District 13: 6/10
District 13: Ultimatum: 10/10

District 13
studio: Momentum; country: UK; region code: ABC; codec: VC-1;
file size: 15 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 25.48 Mbit/sec

 
District 13: Ultimatum
studio: Momentum; country: UK; region code: B; codec: VC-1;
file size: 18 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 25.55 Mbit/sec

Oh, and for the sake of comparison, below are a few shots from the final scene of District 13, which is recapped at the beginning of District 13: Ultimatum. Ignoring for a moment the differences in grading, these should provide a clear demonstration of how much better the sequel was handled than its predecessor as far as picture quality is concerned. (District 13 shots are on the first line, District 13: Ultimatum shots on the second.)

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