Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend Blu-ray Movie Review

Prehistoric Bambi

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 30, 2011

In 1985, Disney released a live-action dinosaur movie featuring then state-of-the-art animatronics and miniatures that allowed humans to interact closely with a baby brontosaurus nicknamed, appropriately, "Baby". The film wasn't a hit at the box office, but it became something of a cult favorite on the nascent format of home video. Eight years later, though, the rampaging T-rex, velociraptors, gallimimuses and assorted others creatures inhabiting Jurassic Park trampled Baby into near-oblivion. The film managed to retain a fanbase, primarily among those who remember it fondly from its early days.

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend is part of the bundle of Touchstone and Hollywood films licensed to Mill Creek for barebones, bargain-priced Blu-ray releases. While Mill Creek's track record to date has been decidedly mixed, fans of Baby will be pleased to learn that this is one disc that has come through the mill (sorry!) in relatively good shape.

Portentous opening text tells of the "Mokele-Mobembe", a reptile larger than an elephant rumored to exist in the jungles of the equatorial rain forest of West Africa. (Portions of the film were shot in the Ivory Coast region.) The film then opens in an unnamed city that is meant to represent the modern capital of a relatively new African nation. A parade is in progress for an unspecified occasion, and it serves the twin purposes of exotic travelogue-style background and supplying cover for a murder. One white man fatally stabs another for a portfolio of information about the Mokele-Mobembe. As we will shortly learn, the victim is a paleontologist named Etienne (Julian Curry). The killer is a rival paleontologist, Dr. Eric Kiviat (Patrick McGoohan). With admirable narrative efficiency, director Bill Norton and writers Clifford and Ellen Green have already introduced the villain and demonstrated the lengths to which his obsession with finding the Mokele-Mobembe will carry him.

Dr. Kiviat has a bright student assistant, Susan Matthews-Loomis (Sean Young), who has accompanied him on this expedition with dreams of making an important find. She presents Kiviat with what she believes is the neck bone of a brontosaurus, but since Kiviat knows that carbon dating will show it to be of recent origin, he tells her it's a giraffe. That's not Susan's only disappointment. Her husband, George Loomis (William Katt), put his career as a sports reporter on hold to accompany Susan for what she promised would be six months, and he's just received an offer for a prime spot on his paper if he can start immediately. Susan isn't ready to go yet. She becomes even more determined to stay when Kiviat, who is leaving to chase clues confirmed by the stolen portfolio, has her deal with a Dr. Dubois (Edward Hardwicke) from the Red Cross. It seems that much of a village was sickened after eating the flesh of an animal they'd never before seen. Dr. Dubois has a bone he'd like expert help in identifying. It's identical to the bone Kiviat told Susan came from a giraffe.

George tells Susan this isn't her problem, but she leaves with Dubois anyway and George follows. (His travel efforts provide comic relief, courtesy of a mercenary pilot played by Hugh Quarshie.) The rest of the film plays out like a miniature version of Steven Spielberg's The Lost World, as the married couple, on the one hand, and Kiviat, on the other hand, converge on a family unit of brontosauruses (brontosauri?) with opposing purposes. Kiviat, who has the support of gun-toting government troops, wants the acclaim and wealth that will flow from bringing back a live specimen of a species long throught to be extinct. Susan and George want -- well, that keeps changing. At first, Susan just wants to solve the mystery. Then, after she and George make friends with "Baby" and see what Kiviat is up to, they become like the rebel conservationists in Spielberg's film, constantly looking for ways to sabotage Kiviat's efforts, despite his superior forces. They succeed in the end, because nature finds a way, particularly the maternal instinct of a mother to protect her child -- and the vindictive instinct of a spouse to avenge its mate. (This is Disney, after all, and they're the company that was willing to kill Bambi's mother. In a children's animated film.)

Also, never underestimate the virtue of making friends with the indigenous inhabitants. Breaking bread (or, in this case, ants) with the local chief can turn out to be a huge asset at critical moments. An explorer of Kiviat's expertise should have known that too.

The film's special effects work is certainly dated, but it's very good, even though you're aware of the animatronics at all times, and some of the optically composited shots and rear projections are quite obvious. Should these limitations "take you out of the movie", to use the common phrase? I don't think so. People just as routinely complain that CGI looks "fake", and it's often not because those effects are badly done. It's because we know the objects and situations they depict are not and cannot be real. Unless viewers work with the filmmakers by suspending disbelief, our brains automatically supply a reality check by telling us that what we're seeing can't possibly happen. How else could something that doesn't exist in the real world -- like a dinosaur in modern times -- "look" fake? There's no genuine article with which to compare it.

A film like Baby doesn't work without an effective villain, and McGoohan's Kiviat is a terrific one. Always an interesting presence, McGoohan makes the unusual choice to keep Kiviat's obsessive intensity under wraps and pent up inside, so that people generally don't see it until it's too late. One example is Colonel Nsogbu (Olu Jacobs), the conceited commander of the troops assigned to assist Kiviat in retrieving the Mokele-Mobembe. The colonel thinks he's dealing with a mild-mannered academic and realizes, too late, that the passenger he's ferrying is a stone cold killer.

Trivia note: Watch for Julian Fellowes as Kiviat's doggedly loyal assistant, Nigel. Eighteen years later, he won an Oscar for the screenplay of Robert Altman's Gosford Park.

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Baby was one of the last films shot by the late John Alcott, who won an Oscar for photographing Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and also worked on The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. It's a safe bet that, despite the challenges of working on location in Africa, Baby was probably a less demanding film than working with Kubrick. (Substantial portions of the film were shot on soundstages in California.)

I didn't see Baby theatrically, but judging by the fleshtones, which appear accurate, Mill Creek's 1080p (yay!), AVC-encoded Blu-ray accurately reproduces Alcott's cinematography, which accentuates the green of the jungle foliage, the red of the earth and the brownish tinge of the lake and river waters. The image is well-detailed, except in shots that show image degradation due to optical compositing, rear projection, split screen or other effects processing. Grain is generally controlled and unobtrusive except during the opening title sequence, which would have been achieved optically, thereby necessarily degrading the image; as soon as the titles end, the image improves. Black levels are respectable, though not always perfect, with some degree of crush evident in darker night scenes. As has been typicial of Mill Creek titles, I did not see any indication of DNR or other inappropriate post-processing, nor did I encounter any compression artifacts.

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Despite Mill Creek's continued habit of listing the sound format as "Dolby Digital 2.0" on the packaging, the sole audio track is, in fact, DTS-HD MA 4.0, which no doubt accounts for its remarkably effective surround ambiance. Especially when played back through an advanced decoder system such as Prologic Iix, the track sends numerous jungle sounds to the surrounds, as well as various sounds of human activity appropriate to the scene. Bass extension is surprisingly strong, given the age of the source material, which is a benefit both for the brontosaurus calls and for Jerry Goldsmith's score. Dialogue is clear and firmly anchored to the front center. Barring a full-fledged remix from original stems, I can't imagine this track sounding any better.

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As usual with Mill Creek, none.

Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For me, the most difficult suspension of disbelief watching Baby wasn't the effects. It was the character motivations required by the ending. Would an ambitious and upcoming paleontology student, who had suffered all the risks and privations that Susan endures throughout the film (and, presumably, in the months before its events) really give up the find of a lifetime just for the inner satisfaction of a newly found treehugger conscience (not to mention, in an understated but definite subtext of raw political incorrectness, a newly awakened maternal instinct)? Would an even more ambitious journalist (even a sports writer), having sacrificed so much of his career -- including, probably the dream job for which he was supposed to leave days ago -- really agree to suppress the story of the century, when he could use it write his own ticket? All for what, love and ideals?

Sorry, but I've known too many upwardly mobile professionals in my life. This may be the Wonderful World of Disney, but that, too, took ambition to build. I'll believe in a brontosaurus surviving to the modern age before I'll buy George and Susan as self-denying saints.