5.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Eight people go on an expedition into the Congo, an expanse of Africa where the laws of nature have gone berserk. When the thrill-seekers, some with ulterior motives, stumble across a race of killer apes, they must fight their way out of the dark.
Starring: Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry, Grant HeslovAdventure | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Congo is often remembered as the killer gorilla movie, but in fact the mutant gray monsters don't appear until late in the film. Adapted from Michael Crichton's novel of the same name, Congo is more accurately described as a modern version of an old Hollywood staple, the jungle adventure, with a Crichton-style wrapping of technology and a classic MacGuffin about a legendary treasure. What made the film popular with audiences in 1995, and continues to make it entertaining today, is the sly wit that screenwriter and playwright John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck and Doubt) sprinkled liberally throughout the script in adapting Crichton's novel. Gratuitous but entertaining moments like the "California Dreaming" sequence (those familiar with Congo will know what I mean) or inspired decisions like changing the expedition leader from a Scot to an African of British descent ("I'm your Great White Hunter. Though I happen to be black.") are classic Shanley touches. Add unexpected casting choices from the experienced team of director Frank Marshall and producer Kathleen Kennedy, both long-time collaborators with Steven Spielberg, and Congo offers plenty of entertainment for well over an hour before the deadly apes enter the scene
Congo was shot by the fine cinematographer Allen Daviau (E.T., Empire of the Sun ), who has a distinctive gift for arranging his frame and choosing focal lengths that give his images a sense of depth. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, from a Paramount transfer, while not at the very top of the studio's efforts with catalog titles licensed from Paramount, is certainly among its better efforts to date. The image is sharp and detailed, with deep blacks and good contrast levels. The texture of the film's grain pattern is somewhat inconsistent in this presentation. An occasional shot suggests a touch of light sharpening. Much of the film is fine-grained, while a few sections, notably in the TraviCom sequences, have a much heavier grain pattern that may be inherent to the source. Some of the digital effects shots give themselves away with subtle change in the film's texture, but this too is inherent in the source and is an anomaly that would not be fully eliminated until the advent of digital intermediates in the next decade. (Hardly anyone noticed until Blu-ray websites began posting screenshots.) The colors are richly saturated, fully bringing out the vivid hues of the locations, which included Uganda, Tanzania and Costa Rica. Detail in faces and costumes, and even the individual hairs on Stan Winston's gorilla suits, are readily visible. Although Warner has used a BD-25 for this 108-minute film, the lack of any real extras has allowed it to achieve an average bitrate of 23.98 Mbps, which isn't great but is adequate to the task of reproducing the film without artifacts.
The sound team for Congo created everything from the roars of the killer apes to the surface-to-air missile attack on the expedition's plane to the increasingly intense seismic events that shake Mt. Mukenko during the expedition. Sounds of the jungle spread throughout the listening area, both by day and by night ("When the moon is like that", explains Munro, "every monkey for 200 miles thinks he's Elvis Presley"). In between, we get the sudden eruption of warfare when the group arrives in Africa, an unexpected attack by a large jungle creature, and various other loud events that give Congo's 5.1 track, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA, plenty of opportunities to join in the fun. The dialogue is always clear, which is important, because much of it is intentionally funny, including Joe Don Baker's ranting as Travis and Dylan Walsh's hopelessly naive attempts, as Dr. Eliot, to sound like he knows what he's doing. Jerry Goldsmith's score is a fine example of the late composer's discriminating taste, because it's big and heroic, but not too big and heroic. Congo isn't a serious enough film to withstand too much heroism.
Like Paramount's 2003 and 2013 DVDs of Congo, the Blu-ray contains only two trailers, a teaser (480i; 1.33:1; 1:24) and the full theatrical trailer (480i; 1.85:1; 2:30).
Congo was critically reviled, but audiences didn't care. Marshall and his team crafted an entertaining piece of escapist fantasy. Parts of the story are silly, but that's true of every fantasy adventure film. (Don't get me started on Raiders of the Lost Ark.) Almost twenty years later, the tech looks clunky in the age of iPhones, and R.J. Travis' "next generation" sounds like ancient history, but the ride is still fun. It's unfortunate that Paramount didn't create any DVD extras that could have been ported over, but the Blu-ray presentation is worthy and, on that basis, recommended.
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