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Films I saw for the first time in March 2011

11:59 PM / Cinema / No Comments

• Wednesday, March 2, 2011: CUCKOO (UK, 2009) 6/10
• Friday, March 4, 2011: NEVER LET ME GO (UK/USA, 2010) 7/10
• Friday, March 18, 2011: THE ILLUSIONIST (UK/France, 2010) 6/10
• Sunday, March 20, 2011: TANGLED (USA, 2010) 6/10
• Wednesday, March 30, 2011: EDGE OF DARKNESS (UK/USA, 2010) 6/10

BDs and DVDs I bought or received in March 2011

11:59 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

• Thursday, March 3, 2011: WEEDS: SEASON SIX (BD, Region A, USA)
• Friday, March 4, 2011: NEVER LET ME GO (BD, Region AB, USA)
• Monday, March 7, 2011: PHENOMENA (BD, Region ABC, UK)
• Monday, March 14, 2011: 127 HOURS (BD, Region A, USA)
• Saturday, March 19, 2011: TANGLED (BD, Region ABC, USA)
• Wednesday, March 23, 2011: INFERNO (BD, Region ABC, USA)

BD impressions: Tangled

10:33 PM / BD Impressions / 13 Comments

The film: A number of Disney features have had what are known in the trade as "troubled productions", but TANGLED has got to rank as one of the rockiest of them all. Originally set to be the directorial debut of veteran animator Glen Keane, it started out during the Michael Eisner era as a straight adaptation of the Rapunzel story - and indeed its title, until shortly before its release, was RAPUNZEL - then became a wise-ass "ironic" retelling called RAPUNZEL UNBRAIDED to cash in on the success of the loathsome SHREK movies. That version was in turn canned, Keane stepped down due to health concerns, and the project finally saw the light of day somewhere in the region of a decade after we first heard about it. Whew!

I mention all this because there's really nothing about TANGLED (still can't get used to that name change) that suggests such a lengthy and complicated history. On the contrary, it's hard to shake the impression that it feels a lot like a side project that was put into production quickly, with its directors (Byron Howard and Nathan Greno) largely adhering to the Disney book of animation clichés. It's slick, inoffensive and an enjoyable enough way to kill 100 minutes, but like the previous year's THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG it takes no risks whatsoever, and unlike that film it lacks the hand-drawn charm that really made it feel as if Disney was returning to its roots. The songs are entirely forgettable (was Alan Menken having an off-day or something?), the leading man (around whom most of the marketing has focused, despite it being Rapunzel's story) is just a bland copy of Disney's earlier Aladdin, the chameleon sidekick is irritating and largely pointless...

I can't say I disliked it, and there were moments that made me smile, but while watching it I found myself unable to shake the feeling that the supposed return to form that has occurred since John Lasseter and co took over the running of Walt Disney Animation Studios is to some extent a self-perpetuated marketing strategy rather than any real turnaround in terms of the quality of their output. (On the other hand, the last film released before Lasseter came on board was CHICKEN LITTLE...) Year by year, placing the output of Disney and Pixar side by side - BOLT vs. WALL-E, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG vs. UP, TANGLED vs. TOY STORY 3 - it's pretty clear that the latter remain the undisputed kings of feature animation, and that Disney has yet to put out anything as fresh, witty and original as its one true gem of the 21st century so far, LILO & STITCH. 6/10

Image quality: Barring some compression artefacts in a small number of scenes (see Example 8), this is reference quality material. Any criticisms are entering into the realm of nit-picking, but this wouldn't be a Land of Whimsy review without nit-picking, would it? It falls just shy of perfection, and I can't imagine anyone having any serious complaints. 9.5/10

Tangled
studio: Buena Vista; country: USA; region code: ABC;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 1.78:1 (theatrical 1.85:1)

BD impressions: Inferno (Blue Underground release)

2:19 PM / BD Impressions / 14 Comments

The film: See my review from a couple of years back here. 8/10

Image quality: This is the fourth BD release of INFERNO so far, with UK, French and Japanese versions having preceded it. (A fifth, from German label Camera Obscura, should have been out by now as well, but it has yet to materialise. Any word on that one, guys?) Of these, the only one I'd previously seen in motion was the UK release by Arrow Video, which I found to be most disappointing due to its overzealous application of grain reduction, which rendered it soft, overly smooth and video-like. I've been very impressed by US label Blue Underground's Argento BDs so far, so obviously I was curious as to whether it would improve on Arrow's mediocre offering.

The answer is that it does, quite substantially. It's worth pointing out that every BD release of INFERNO has been derived from the same master, one created in 2007 by 20th Century Fox and first used for the Italian Fox DVD release of the same year. It differed quite noticeably in terms of colour palette than what was at the time the only other DVD of the film, a 2000 release from Anchor Bay (later re-released with the same transfer by Blue Underground). In comparison with the Fox DVD, Anchor Bay's version was darker, with heavier saturation and a colour palette that tended to push the reds towards a rich pink rather than the more muted oranges found on the Fox version. I mention this because, unlike the UK, Japanese and French BDs, Blue Underground seem to have digitally colour corrected the Fox master in an attempt to bring it more in line with the colours found on the Anchor Bay DVD. Sometimes the differences are subtle to the point of being unnoticeable, but on other occasions they are quite striking, particularly during Rose (Irene Miracle)'s conversation with Kazanian (Sacha Pitoeff) in the doorway of his antique shop in the opening minutes of the film.

Which look - if either - is the more accurate? I'm going to quote Thomas Rostock, as I did when I reviewed the Arrow BD:

Having plowed through several VHS, Laserdisc and film-print incarnations of this the director's most accomplished visual achievement (seeing this on the big screen by way of the excellent UK print in circulation around 1995 was truly an astonishing experience for me. Totally blew me away in a way SUSPIRIA couldn't even begin to match), I must say that look of the Anchor Bay DVD of 2000 actually fares much closer to Romano Albani's intended look than the new MGM/FOX. Romano Albani along with Argento worked hard to achieve a fuller, more lush look than SUSPIRIA using in particular the two new lighting color gels named Rose and Deep Blue introduced into the market in 1979.

[...]

In short, Rose and Deep Blue are the governing colors of INFERNO. However, the MGM/FOX transfer suppresses exactly these two colors to the point oblivion (Rose) and to a dull, faded hue (Deep Blue) [...] If one is aware of literally the hours it can take to light with different color-gels on a film-set, it is especially disheartening to witness MGM/FOX's negligent attitude towards the intended color-specific look of INFERNO. But perhaps even worse is the fact that this is the only transfer making its rounds to all corners of the world commercially through MGM's cost-efficent licensing and will stand as a misrepresentation of the real beautiful and haunting color-scheme that is at the very heart and soul of INFERNO. One can voice many a fault about William Lustig's AB/BU releases, but on the visual, color-correctional side of things, he has yet to make mistake.

I haven't had a chance to speak to Thomas about the look of the Blue Underground BD, and unlike him I can't claim to have ever seen an actual print of the film, but it's worth pointing out that, since the 2007 Fox master materialised, I've come across comments by three or four other people on various forums, all of whom had seen INFERNO theatrically and felt similarly let down by the Fox version. As for myself, speaking purely from the point of personal preference, I rather like this curious hybrid that Blue Underground has created. While it lacks the extreme (?over-)saturation of the Anchor Bay DVD, in most other respects it matches its colour palette quite closely. That was the first version of INFERNO I ever saw, so perhaps that's why I tend to prefer it.

As for the rest of the transfer, basically it's very pleasing to the eye. The grain that was all but obliterated on the Arrow BD is in full force here and looks extremely natural and film-like. I suspect INFERNO was always a somewhat soft film, so detail doesn't measure up to the likes of the BDs of THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE or TENEBRAE, but the transfer consistently looks like film, and I should point out that it looks better in motion than in static screen captures. The grain is quite coarse, which doesn't always result in the best still images, but in motion, the continually moving grain creates a far greater sense of detail. This is all compressed very well - an area where Blue Underground always seems to excel.

The image quality on this release more than makes up for the shortcomings of the Arrow version and, in my opinion, is the one to get (although there's always that niggling sense that the much-delayed Camera Obscura version may surprise us all). I'm not convinced by the claim on the back cover of the BD that the film is "freshly transferred... from the original uncut and uncensored negative", given the number of black (positive) flecks on display, and the overall texture of the film, which has more in common with some of the interpositive- or internegative-sourced presentations Criterion have put out than, say, an OCN-sourced presentation of an 80s film like the recent releases of TAXI DRIVER and STAND BY ME. If so, I suspect if Fox had gone back to the camera negative when creating their master is would have looked noticeably better. Still, it's a very satisfying presentation that allows the film's sumptuous visuals to shine. 7.5/10

PS. It's worth pointing out that, like the Arrow release, the Blue Underground version is very slightly cropped at all four sides (unlike the Italian DVD and French BD). It's a minor point, admittedly, but one worth noting.

Inferno
studio: Blue Underground; country: USA; region code: ABC;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Inferno comparison

2:10 PM / Blu-ray / No Comments

A review of the new Blue Underground BD should be posted in a few minutes. Until then, here are some comparative screen captures to tide you over:

DVD (20th Century Fox, Region 2 Italy)

BD (Arrow Video, Region ABC UK)

BD (Blue Underground, Region ABC USA)

#1044: Inferno

6:03 PM / Blu-ray / 15 Comments

(BD, Blue Underground, Region ABC, USA)

BD impressions: Phenomena

2:59 PM / BD Impressions / 15 Comments

Note: Time constraints prevent me from doing a full review of PHENOMENA, as I have done for other recent Argento BD releases like INFERNO, TENEBRAE and DEEP RED. At some point in the future I might come back and add some thoughts on the extras (once I've had time to watch them). For the time being, though, I'm going to concentrate on the image quality.

The film: I consider PHENOMENA to be my Dario Argento "guilty pleasure". Although nowadays Argento's "golden period" is considered to stretch from DEEP RED in 1975 to OPERA in 1987, with PHENOMENA fitting comfortably under that umbrella, the press wasn't exactly kind to it when it was originally released, and seems to have been held up by more than a few as proof that Argento had lost it (a sentiment that has since been echoed every time a new Argento film has come out).

It has a reasonable claim to being Argento's craziest film, an ill-disciplined, kitchen-sink affair combining the supernatural elements and girls' school setting of SUSPIRIA with the more conventional logic of gialli like DEEP RED and TENEBRAE. It's not exactly a comfortable mix, and a liberal sprinkling of heavy metal doesn't do anything to make the film more cohesive, but it somehow works all the same. That's largely thanks to a young Jennifer Connelly's engaging screen presence (it's actually helpful to think of this as the less child-friendly evil twin of LABYRINTH, released a year later), the wonderfully evocative atmosphere of the "Swiss Transylvania", and a no-holds-barred bat-shit crazy third act. The latter somehow manages to make the at times meandering and inconsequential first 90 minutes worth sitting through... and let's face it, it's got a razor-wielding chimp, Donald Pleasence doing an awful Scottish accent, and Jennifer Connelly communicating telepathically with bugs! As such, I can fully understand those who consider this their favourite Argento film, even if in my opinion it's a long way from the grandeur of SUSPIRIRA and DEEP RED, or his next (and last truly great) film, OPERA. 8/10

Image quality: This is PHENOMENA's high definition debut, and after having watched more DVD copies of the film than I care to count, I feel reasonably confident in stating that it's a step forward in some respects and a step backward in others. It looks slightly less contrasty than its predecessors, and in terms of colour palette seems to fall somewhere between the heavily blue-tinted look of the Anchor Bay (US) and Imagica (Japanese) DVDs and the more natural-looking Medusa (Italian) release. Detail varies quite a bit, with some shots - particularly static ones - showing a decent amount of fine detail, but for the most part it's not great. As far as I can tell, this largely stems from the application of overzealous grain reduction. It's hard to tell whether this was on the master or something Arrow added themselves, but knowing that they grain reduced INFERNO themselves (or rather paid for an outside firm to do it), I have my suspicions.

In any event, the grain reduction has a seriously detrimental effect on the texture of the film, frequently giving the image the look of a watercolour painting (see Example 5). The striking Alpine landscapes become fuzzy and indistinct, and in a number of shots the grizzled Donald Pleasence looks like he has the skin texture of a man half his age. But none of this compares to the absolute havoc the grain reduction wreaks on shots with particularly rapid camera movement, such as the "we worship you" chant when the other pupils gang up on Jennifer. Here, the artefacts became so bad that I actually ended up rewinding the BD and going through it frame by frame because I couldn't believe what I was seeing (see Example 12). Bear in mind that, while Example 12 is a particularly severe demonstration of the effect, it's far from an isolated incident and simply hammers home that whoever applied the grain reduction wasn't paying attention to what they were doing.

This is the only HD release of PHENOMENA currently on the cards, so I suspect a lot of people will want to pick it up regardless. However, I felt incredibly short-changed by this presentation, and didn't get much pleasure out of watching it because I was constantly distracted by the destructive grain reduction. It's sad when a DVD release from a decade ago looks more film-like than a just-released BD, but that's unfortunately how things are. That's not to say that the BD of PHENOMENA looks worse than its standard definition predecessors - the improvement in detail puts paid to that - but I constantly found myself thinking about how much better it could have looked if it hadn't been mangled by overzealous technicians. 5/10

Phenomena
studio: Arrow Video; country: UK; region code: ABC;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 1.66:1

PS. It's worth pointing out that this is the full-length 116-minute "integral" cut of the film rather than the 110-minute English-language export version released by Anchor Bay. The differences between the two cuts are too numerous and minute to list here, but there's a great guide over at Dark Dreams. Suffice it to say that, with so many (around 75) differences, many amounting to a frame or two here and a frame or two there, conforming the English language audio track (which was created for the 110-minute version) to the 116-minute version was no small feat. (Where no English audio exists, the film drops into Italian with English subtitles. Because most of the cuts were little more than slight trims at the beginning and end of shots, this only happens a handful of times - it's nowhere near as frequent as in DEEP RED.) On the whole, Arrow have done a good job, but there are a number of instances where the music unavoidably skips and repeats itself, and I also noticed at least two instances where dialogue that was in English on every previous English-language DVD inexplicably dropped into subtitled Italian here (these can be found at around 00:19:00 and 00:26:00 - there could well be more). It's a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but a slightly perplexing one.

BD impressions: L'illusionniste

2:18 PM / BD Impressions / 2 Comments

The film: It's hard to put my finger on precisely why Sylvain Chomet's follow-up to his excellent LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE doesn't have the same verve as its predecessor. It shares both the same visual style and languid pacing, but somehow it lacks that film's vibrance and energy. Given that it's a film about an ageing magician whose career is coming to an end, that's perhaps appropriate, but there's something rather laboured about it all, and the humour that infused BELLEVILLE is largely lacking... odd, given that the film was adapted from an unused script by Jacques Tati, arguably Chomet's biggest influence.

It all seems a bit distant, and the characters aren't especially likeable... particularly Alice, the teenage girl who hooks up with the cash-strapped illusionist and spends the bulk of the film demanding that he buy her expensive clothes, only to ditch him for a younger model when the money dries up completely. I get the impression I was meant to see her as charming and innocent; instead, I just found myself thinking "What an ungrateful little hussy!"

The film ends on a decidedly sombre note, but by then it has outstayed its welcome, meaning that whatever emotional resonance it might have had is diluted. I can't help feeling that perhaps this would have worked better as a short - it's lovely to look at, but there isn't enough material in it to sustain your undivided attention for 80 minutes. Recently, I was a little surprised to see this film overlooked in the best animated feature category the BAFTAs; having seen it, however, I can understand the decision. As much of a fan of traditional animation as I am, TOY STORY 3 and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (I haven't seen DESPICABLE ME yet) are far superior examples of the medium. 6/10

Image quality: Some very nice work by Pathé, who don't appear to have interfered with the image in any way. The sharpness is a little inconsistent, but this is clearly something inherent in the artwork itself: within any given shot, different elements (characters, backgrounds, props) vary in terms of overall clarity. The relatively low bit rate VC-1 encode does exhibit some compression artefacts, particularly around the thin pencil outlines, but it's nothing scandalous. 9/10

L'illusionniste
studio: Pathé; country: France; region code: B;
codec: VC-1; aspect ratio: 1.85:1

#1043: Tangled

9:42 PM / Blu-ray / 4 Comments

(BD/DVD combo, Buena Vista, Region ABC/1, USA)

Getting ready to build my baseboard...

11:10 AM / Model Railways / 2 Comments

The pieces are beginning to fall into place for my model railway layout. The plan is to ultimately have a setup measuring 240 x 190 cm, with four lines (three passenger lines and one goods line in the centre), a terminus station and a handful of sidings. I haven't thought too much about scenics yet, but would like to have an engine shed and to extend the station platforms to a reasonable length as the absolute bare minimum, and will probably end up covering the baseboard with some sort of grass-like and ballast-like materials to make it look less like... well, a baseboard. I'd also like to eventually add some buildings, trees and the like, and to possibly experiment with terrain elevation for at least one of the four lines (most likely the central goods line, which is separated sufficiently from the other lines to make this feasible).

In the interests of not breaking the bank, however, for the time being I'm going to concentrate on getting three of the four lines, the beginnings of the terminus station and a couple of siding pinned down. I have extra track, acquired in dribs and drabs over the past few weeks...

...and base building materials, picked up from B&Q yesterday, making use of a 15% discount voucher I was handed after buying a bottle of Pepsi Max at WH Smith's earlier this month.

The ingredients are as follows:

• 8 pieces of insulation board, measuring 120 x 50 x 5 cm each
• Planed timber to make up the frame
• 2 bottles of PVA glue to stick it all together

The emphasis is on light and portable, which is why I've gone for insulation board rather than wood. The material is light enough to be lifted so I can prop the layout against the wall when not in use (and also means I can simply push the track pins in with my fingers rather than hammering them in), but durable enough that someone could actually walk over it without leaving so much as a footprint if they so desired (though I'll ultimately be fitting legs to the board, so there won't be much of that happening).

In the meantime, unlike its real-life counterpart, which is currently undergoing repairs, my limited edition Flying Scotsman has returned to service. I'd previously written the 20-year-old model off as in need of repair, but to my surprise, when I brought it out recently for one last shot at firing it up, it suddenly came back to life after I gave it a firm shove on the behind. Running it alongside more recent models shows how much standards have improved in recent years - it's slower, noisier (even after oiling), the motorised tender rattles from side to side, and the level of detail on what was once a high-end model nowadays doesn't compete with even the basic Hornby Railroad range - but it's still amazing to me that a 20-year-old train that has spent the better part of the last two decades languishing in a dusty cupboard could spring back to life to readily.

(I know just about every kid with a model railway in this country has a Flying Scotsman, but mine's special, dammit: it has two tenders! It represents the locomotive as it ran between 1966 and 1973, when most railside water towers in the UK had been dismantled and a second tender carrying water was required for its lengthy runs up and down the country.)

Laying the dead to rest

1:01 PM / Television / 1 Comment

This past weekend, the BBC's Emmy-winning crime series WAKING THE DEAD began its ninth and sadly final season with a two-parter, "Harbinger", penned by Ed Whitmore. Whitmore is someone whose writing I have a lot of time for, particularly with regard to his contributions to WAKING THE DEAD. He wrote my favourite ever episode, Series 2's "Thin Air", as well as Series 3's "Multistorey", the episode that bagged the show its Emmy, and in my opinion the quality of the show suffered noticeably during his two-year absence from it (Series 6 and 7). When he returned during Series 8, he gave us the best episode of WAKING THE DEAD in years, "End of the Night", and as such I was elated by the news that he would be serving as lead writer for Series 9, responsible for three of the five two-parters. (Obviously, it would have been perfect if creator Barbara Machin came back to do the finale, but it doesn't look like this will be happening.)

Having watched WAKING THE DEAD from its 2000 pilot and never missed a single episode, I've come to recognise the recurring traits that would tend to pop up in episodes penned by the same writers. Stephen Davis' scripts, for example, were often laugh-out-loud hilarious, while Declan Croghan (the head writer for Series 6 and 7, and the creator of the upcoming THE BODY FARM spin-off) made heavy use of religious imagery and creepy cults. Whitmore's modus operandi has tended to be revealing the hidden depravities committed by supposedly respectable upper middle class families, and "Harbinger" is no exception. What initially seemed to be a fairly conventional "missing person" story (albeit one with the odd unique touch, such as a creepy old couple clearly inspired by Grant Wood's American Gothic) went off in a completely different direction in the second hour when the team uncovered a particularly disturbing case of Münchausen syndrome by proxy.

This is what I love about Whitmore's episodes. So often, he gives you what you think is one thing, then proceeds to twist it in a completely different direction, while at the same time layering in enough clues that the final reveal makes complete sense. (I'm thinking in particular of "Thin Air" and the revelation that Roger Allam's character had been in love with his own daughter.) I've noticed that whereas some writers tend to pack as much excitement into Part 1 as possible, meaning that Part 2 is sometimes a bit of a letdown, Whitmore takes the time to build things up in the first half, so he can then pay them off satisfyingly in the second. Taken in isolation, Part 1 of "Harbinger" feels a little bland and unremarkable, but view it in the context of Part 2 and it becomes clear just how well constructed the story is as a whole.

I do miss the old team, though, and the insertion of a new character, played by Eva Birthistle, just makes me yearn for the interplay that built up between the original five leads over the course of the four series they spent together. Boyd, Grace and Spence are still present and correct, and the Boyd/Grace scenes invariably tend to result in the best moments in any episode, but Birthistle's character, Sarah, hasn't really gelled with the team yet, and I'm afraid I've never taken to the current pathologist, Eve (who'll be the main character in THE BODY FARM). (And what happened to Kat, the new girl from the previous series? 80s hair aside, I liked her.) Before the start of Series 9, I did a flying recap of the show, watching one episode from each season, and I was struck by the evolving chemistry between the original leads, culminating in the pitch-perfect Series 4. This exchange between Boyd and Frankie, from "Anger Management", just kills me:

(Boyd has started seeing a therapist and is learning to control his anger. The team are used to him blowing up at the slightest provocation, which is why Frankie is so disturbed by his even-temperedness here.)

Sorry to inadvertently turn this into a bit of a grousing session, but this (heavily improv'd, by the looks of it) exchange between two talented actors who clearly know their characters intimately is the sort of thing that made WAKING THE DEAD so unmissable for its first four to five years and is the element I found most sorely lacking in the Series 6-7 period. We got little hints of it in Series 8 (Boyd and Grace's discussion about which of them has the weirder job in "End of the Night" being a particular highlight), and I'm hoping there's more to come before things come to a close in four weeks' time. I'm genuinely sorry WAKING THE DEAD is ending - it is, for my money, by far the best long-running detective series I've watched in recent years, and trounces the flashier, sillier US equivalent, CSI - but on the plus side it stands a reasonable chance of ending on some sort of a high. And if at some point in the future, Boyd and the team decide to don their lab coats once again to once again pick over the bones of a few more rotting corpses, I'll be there.

Incidentally, my picks for the best episode of each series are (bearing in mind that it's hard to pick a "favourite" for the lacklustre Series 6 and 7):

• Series 1: "Every Breath You Take" by Barbara Machin
• Series 2: "Thin Air" by Ed Whitmore
• Series 3: "Breaking Glass" by Stephen Davis
• Series 4: "Anger Management" by John Milne & Andy Hay
• Series 5: "Straw Dog" by Declan Croghan
• Series 6: "Yahrzeit" by Declan Croghan
• Series 7: "Skin" by Clive Bradley & Declan Croghan
• Series 8: "End of the Night" by Ed Whitmore

A few thoughts on Dragon Age II

8:51 PM / Games / 3 Comments

Released in late 2009, the initial instalment in Bioware's "Dragon Age" series, DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS, was a welcome callback to their old Dungeons & Dragons BALDUR'S GATE series from earlier in the decade, focusing more on questing, character development and dialogue than the wave of more action-inspired role-playing games that had appeared in the interim. At least in its PC incarnation, which featured the ability to pull the camera back to a top-down, quasi-isometric viewpoint (reminiscent of BALDUR'S GATE), the game's combat proved to be an enjoyably tactical affair, and the limp voice acting, stilted animation and generally derivative nature of the game's world were to an extent forgiveable given the sheer amount of content and player choice that was packed on to the game DVD. (For more information, see my original review.)

When DRAGON AGE II was announced so soon after the release of the first game, many people - myself included - were a little sceptical. Rushing out a follow-up less than 18 months later screamed "cash-in", and news that the game was going to appropriate certain aspects from Bioware's sci-fi MASS EFFECT series did little to assuage players' concerns. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I think the MASS EFFECT series is excellent, with MASS EFFECT 2 in particular achieving near-masterpiece status and being one of the few games I've ever come across for which the description "cinematic" was actually justified (review here). Concern about the move from a silent, user-nameable protagonist hailing from one of three races and one of six different back-stories to a MASS EFFECT-esque fully voiced hero whose only adjustable characteristics were his/her gender and appearance didn't even worry me unduly, and indeed last summer I wrote about the potential benefits of having a more rigidly defined protagonist to work with. To put it simply, I was more than willing to accept change in DRAGON AGE II if it led to genuine improvement.

Unfortunately, having completed my first playthrough of the new game, it's hard to shake the feeling that more has been lost than gained. While the original was a PC game through and through, wearing its BALDUR'S GATE/ICEWIND DALE pedigree on its sleeve, the sequel seems to have been designed with consoles in mind first and foremost. Gone is the overhead camera in favour of an over-the-shoulder viewpoint that makes tactical gameplay frustrating if not near-impossible. Combat is sped up to the point that it feels as if it's running in fast-forward and threatens to degenerate into mere button-mashing. Inventory management has been streamlined to the extent that you can no longer choose which armour or, in some cases, weapons your companions wear. The game is much smaller in scale, with the bulk of the plot unfolding within the confines of a single city and three or four locations beyond its walls. Whereas some particularly dedicated players took upwards of 100 hours to complete the original, I finished the sequel in just over 26 hours, having made sure to complete every single quest I came across (with the exception of a few so-called "side quests", essentially fetch-and-carry missions with no real purpose other than to serve as filler and an easy means of earning a few additional experience points). Perhaps worst of all, the designers lazily regurgitate the same dungeon layouts multiple times, adding a rockfall here and opening up a door there in a cynical attempt to trick the player into believing they're in a different area.

Combat in DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS.

Combat in DRAGON AGE II.

None of this does anything to counter the notion that the game was rushed out to make a quick buck and capitalise on the success of the MASS EFFECT games (despite the fact that ORIGINS actually outsold MASS EFFECT 2). It's not all bad, though. In fact, it's often rather good, and the fact that I blazed through it so quickly (it was released on Friday in Europe, a few days later than its North American launch) should be testament to its strengths. The plot, while less grand in its scope than that of its predecessor, is engaging, the characters are memorable and often a great deal of fun just to talk to, and the gameplay mechanics, while unquestionably dumbed down, remain enjoyable, even if scarcely a single combat encounter would pass without me wishing I could pull the camera back to a more sensible viewpoint. And the move from an anonymous protagonist to one with a fixed back-story and an actual voice does work wonders in making them come alive. The character art and animation, while still not a patch on that of MASS EFFECT 2, is a step up from ORIGINS, and this, coupled by some decent voice acting that injects genuine emotion into these at times crude-looking bundles of polygons (Eve Myles as elven mage Merrill, Victoria Kruger as saucy pirate Isabela and Gideon Emery as former slave Fenris are particularly impressive), means that you do actually end up caring about the various people who end up joining your party. As with Bioware's previous games, various romance options are included and, in an impressive blow for equality in the video gaming world, can be embarked upon regardless of gender. (My randy protagonist ended up shagging three of her party members - two female and one male.)

That said, while the characters have certainly improved, the environments seem to have taken a step back. While the architecture of the city of Kirkwall, in which most of the game takes place, is impressive, the textures tend to be fairly blurry (even after installing the optional high resolution texture pack made available for PC and Mac users to download at the time of the game's release), the colour palette is comprised mostly of grey and brown, and the lack of variety in terms of environments makes it all feel very repetitive. You do come across the occasional striking vista...

...but on the whole the game looks inferior to its predecessor, which offered far more variety and colour. It doesn't help that, at the two highest graphical settings, the game runs like a dog, even on a Core i7 with a Radeon 5850 video card (not state of the art, I know, but way beyond the game's recommended specifications). To be fair, the higher settings don't add any additional detail - they instead concentrate on things like real-time lighting and depth of field blur - so I didn't feel I was missing out on anything by playing with the slider at Medium, at which I was able to maintain a constant 60 fps with 4x anti-aliasing. It's not a visually stunning game by any stretch of the imagination, and at times looks positively dated in terms of its presentation. Even the user interface looks like it was thrown together as a placeholder and never replaced - which is bizarre, because they could easily have reused the perfectly serviceable ORIGINS interface art.

There's something annoyingly, well, slight about DRAGON AGE II. While the more personal, less grandiose nature of the storyline is not necessarily a bad thing this, coupled with the lack of environments and significantly shorter campaign than ORIGINS, plus the removal of gameplay mechanics and (for lack of a less pejorative word) consolisation of a series that previously wore its PC pedigree on its sleeve, makes it feel less like a full-blown sequel and more of a minor spin-off - albeit one sold at full price (around £30 for PCs and a truly shocking £50 for Xbox 360 and PS3 owners). It's fun while it lasts, but it left me feeling a trifle short-changed and hoping that, if and when Bioware gets round to DRAGON AGE III, they'll take more time to get it right and be less eager to reject their roots.

#1042: 127 Hours

1:30 PM / Blu-ray / 2 Comments

(BD/digital copy combo, 20th Century Fox, Region A, USA)

BD impressions: Never Let Me Go

1:04 PM / BD Impressions / 2 Comments

The film: I finished Kazuo Ishiguro's novel NEVER LET ME GO somewhere in the region of 48 hours before watching the movie adaptation. This is admittedly not always a good idea, as it means the source material is so fresh in your mind that there is a tendency to view even the slightest deviations from the book as flaws. Alex Garland's script, however, is fairly faithful to Ishiguro's novel. Sure, there are nips and tucks here and there, and certain key events are combined or even excised completely, but by and large the plot and, more significantly, the spirit of the novel is retained. (With one fairly crucial difference: the film is a lot more upfront about what precisely is "going on", so to speak, than the novel. I'm as yet undecided as to how I feel about this change.)

Like director Mark Romanek's other film, the Robin Williams vehicle ONE HOUR PHOTO, NEVER LET ME GO is, with the exception of a single scene involving Andrew Garfield's character (which I won't spoil), a cold and emotionally distant film. In some respects this is appropriate, given that much of the book's sense of tragedy stems from the fact that, despite the hopelessness of their situation, its protagonists quietly accept their fate and embrace it more or less willingly. At the same time, though, it makes for rather frustrating viewing, and while I didn't find myself asking the "Why don't they just run away?" question (for me at least, what made the book so chilling was that the characters were so indoctrinated as to their purpose that the thought of escaping never even occurred to them), I did find its po-faced solemnity rather wearying. The acting by the three young leads - Mulligan, Knightley and Garfield - is uniformly excellent, the greyish, understated photography is faultless... It's one of those "well-made films" that doesn't quite have the emotional resonance it should. 7/10

Image quality: A solid if slightly less than outstanding offering from Fox, whom I'm increasingly coming to consider to be the studio providing the most consistently high standard of BD releases, new or catalogue (major gaffes like PATTON and the re-release of PREDATOR notwithstanding). The encoding is solid, and while a handful of shots look to have been slightly grain reduced (going through it frame by frame, the first frame of the affected shots shows more defined grain and better detail than each subsequent frame - see here and here), it's not overly destructive and detail ranges from good to very good throughout. 9/10

Never Let Me Go
studio: 20th Century Fox; country: USA; region code: AB;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 2.39:1

#1041: Phenomena

10:49 PM / Blu-ray / 29 Comments

(BD, Arrow Video, Region ABC, UK)

Another railway video...

3:42 PM / Model Railways / 4 Comments

...to tide you over until I have some actual news to post about my layout. I've got a 15% off voucher for B&Q, so I'm going to go and eye up potential materials for my baseboard later this week.

This is the current plan, by the way:

#1040: Never Let Me Go

12:17 PM / Blu-ray / 4 Comments

(BD, 20th Century Fox, Region AB, USA)

I recently read and was rather enthralled by the Kazuo Ishiguro novel and decided that catching up with the film adaptation was the next logical step. Shall be interested to see how Alex Garland and Mark Romanek's take on the material gels (or doesn't, as the case may be) with how I visualised it.

#1039: Weeds: Season Six

3:01 PM / Blu-ray / 4 Comments

(BD, Lions Gate, Region A, USA)

BD impressions: I Spit on Your Grave (remake)

5:38 PM / BD Impressions / 6 Comments

The film: I previously reviewed the 2010 remake of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE in a fair amount of detail back in January. Rather than repeat myself here, therefore, I'll simply direct you to that review, which also considers how the remake measures up against the original 1978 film. For a quick summary, he's a copy and paste from my ongoing 2011 film log at IMDB:

Slick remake of a deeply flawed original that lacks its predecessor's bite and clarity of purpose. 5/10

Image quality: BD releases of films shot using the Red One digital camera have, to date, been a bit of a mixed bag, seemingly stemming from post houses not knowing what to do with the footage. Several releases, among them VALHALLA RISING, ANTICHRIST and HIERRO, suffer from distracting stair-stepping, while others, such as KNOWING and THE SOCIAL NETWORK, simply look soft. It feels slightly odd to be able to say that I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is the best-looking Red One-sourced title I've seen on BD so far, but it's the truth. It has what I've come to call the Red One look: low contrast, limited dynamic range, but that's presumably the look the director, Steven Monroe, was going for. In any event it suits the film's mood, and for a change I didn't find myself wondering how much better it would have looked if it had been shot on film. Detail is very good, with extreme close-ups revealing a wealth of freckles, moles and other "imperfections" on the actors' faces. There's some nasty black crush going on, and some occasional banding, and as with a number of digital titles the blacks are elevated throughout (extremely noticeable during the on-black opening and closing titles), but those are my only major complaints. 8/10

I Spit on Your Grave (remake)
studio: Anchor Bay; country: USA; region code: A;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 2.39:1