Deep Rising / The Puppet Masters Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Deep Rising / The Puppet Masters Blu-ray Movie Review

Two overlong Monster movies on one Blu-ray disc.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 21, 2012

Deep Rising
Score: 2.5/5

A brand new luxury liner dubbed the Argonautica has just set sail. She's packed with wealthy guests and promises a fortune for her owner, Simon Canton (Anthony Heald). Unfortunately, disaster strikes: something hits the ship, sending people and material flying. A deep sea creature is to blame, and it's feasting on the liquids inside the guests' bodies, leaving only bone and sinew behind. Meanwhile, a small for-hire ship captain named John Finnegan (Treat Williams) is ferrying a group of mysterious individuals, led by the sinister Hanover (Wes Studi), to remote ocean coordinates. One of Finnegan's men (Kevin J. O'Connor) discovers weapons and torpedoes in the hold. Finnegan's not one to ask many questions, though, and he keeps his mouth shut until they approach the Argonautica. Hanover, his men, and Finnegan's crew board the vessel but find it devastated and deserted save for a few survivors, including Canton, Ship's Captain Atherton (Derrick O'Connor), and a sexy high-rolling thief named Trillian (Famke Janssen). As they piece together the mystery of the Argonautica, they find themselves fodder for a ravenous creature who will stop at nothing to consume its next meal.

Deep Rising fails to capture the terror and suspense of the best of the Monster genre. The movie is halfway entertaining but populated by uninteresting and eccentric characters with bland dynamics and a boring range of attributes, from tough guy to comic relief, from femme fatale to levelheaded hero. The movie is fairly executed but hindered by its underpowered and phony computer graphics, a boring structure, an unimaginative plot, and mediocre direction. Deep Rising hedges its bets on its action scenes and moments of excess gore, both of which grow tired rather quickly. Unlike a movie such as Alien that captures a dark atmosphere, good characters, and a serious tone, Deep Rising strives to entertain as wide an audience as possible through the dumbing down of its elements rather than impress viewers with tighter features. This is a classic case of a movie that sets the bar too low but, really, when it's just a rehash of tired elements, the bar cannot get that high by definition, anyway. Deep Rising works well enough as mindless entertainment, but it'll definitely kill a few brain cells as payment for absorbing its drivel.

I'm not good enough for my own Blu-ray?

The Puppet Masters
Score: 2.0/5

The small Iowa town of Ambrose is about to find itself on the map. Several teenagers discover an unusual object. Soon, a local attraction charges one dollar to all visitors to bear witness to an unidentified flying object that's obviously homemade. Three government agents investigate, anyway, using satellite intelligence to verify that something did in fact penetrate Earth's atmosphere and land in Ambrose. Andrew Nivens (Donald Sutherland), his son Sam (Eric Thal), and exobiologist Mary Sefton (Julie Warner) travel to the attraction. There, they find people behaving somewhat suspiciously, but only to very well-trained eyes. The people act a little robotic, the teenagers don't stare at Mary's cleavage, the ground reveals evidence of a burn, and Mary feels something dark and dangerous from within the vessel. They soon discover that they are up against alien beings that attach themselves to the host, take on the host's biological characteristics, and form a symbiotic relationship with the human victim. The human hosts do the aliens' bidding, and the team has only hours until what is still a localized problem spreads across the country and around the globe.

The Puppet Masters may be named for a cherished Robert A. Heinlein novel, the main characters may share their names, and the stories may be about alien parasites, but the similarities largely end there. The Puppet Masters is an overlong, repetitive, and shallow picture that fails to capitalize on its gripping opening minutes, sinking rather quickly into absurdity and boredom as more and more characters predictably come under the control of the parasites. It's one "character A is infected, now character B" series of events after another. The story never really goes anywhere but through these same motions. It lacks chills and legitimate scares, coming across instead as goofy and, eventually, exhausting, leaving audiences rooting for the takeover of mankind just so the experience can be over all the faster. The cast is forgettable and only adequate in performing dual duties, one not-too-sharp government spooks and the other mind-controlled alien hosts.

Deep Rising / The Puppet Masters Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Deep Rising
Score: 3.5/5

Deep Rising isn't a very good looking movie, but Mill Creek's Blu-ray handles the film's dreary photography well enough. The picture appears quite flat and dull. Details are sufficient, but not mind-blowing. The image is best served by the uptick in resolution and heightened clarity of Blu-ray. Colors are decent, particularly early on inside the Argonautica's main hall before disaster strikes. Low-light murkiness defines much of the movie, however, leaving objects appearing bland and dark. Black levels waver from overly deep to too bright. Light grain remains and a few speckles pop up here and there. The image doesn't excite, but this is a serviceable high definition transfer of a movie that wasn't made with eye candy in mind.

The Puppet Masters
Score: 3.5/5

Like Deep Rising, The Puppet Masters features a fairly good high definition transfer. It's unspectacular but solid, a fair catalogue image with no real major problems, a surprise given the low cost of the release. The image offers a stable, consistent picture quality. Details are good but at times a bit pasty and occasionally smeary, particularly across background elements. The image never captures the absolute precision and intricate textures of the finest Blu-ray transfers, but audiences should be satisfied with the general stability, clarity, and accuracy on display. The same may be said of colors. The palate is even and accurate, never perfectly rich but not really dull, either. Very light grain remains, but a few edge halos appear here and there. Blacks and flesh tones are largely accurate. It's not a showstopper, but Mill Creek's transfer is quite good all around.

Deep Rising / The Puppet Masters Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Deep Rising
Score: 4.5/5

Deep Rising swims rather than sinks with an aggressive and highly entertaining DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Mill Creek's audio presentation is packed with plenty of surround sound elements, robust effects, and hefty gunfire. Music blares with good clarity and plenty of back channel support. The energetic party aboard the Argonautica packs in a bunch of people and pulls the listening audience into the middle of the festivities. Dialogue carries nicely through the main hall in silence, but the track shines once mayhem takes over. Heavy crashes, all sorts of twisted metal sounds, creaks and moans, and other sounds of a ship in peril and under the pressure of a dangerous sea creature play with an exciting feel. Gunfire erupts loudly and practically tears the soundstage to shreds. Dialogue is clear and accurate. This track certainly doesn't lack effort. It's not absolutely seamless and sometimes favors energy and volume over precision, but no doubt it's a fun ride that makes a fairly insipid movie a bit more palatable.

The Puppet Masters
Score: 3.5/5

The Puppet Masters lands on Blu-ray with an adequate DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. Listeners will enjoy sufficient heft and space to the opening music. Clarity satisfies, though never does any element really pass for real life. The track spreads the sides out fairly wide. Ambience and action effects fill up the entire front position of the stage, but the lack of rear support lessens the impact of the film's generic action scenes. Dialogue is firm and clear, focused up the middle and refusing to unnaturally drift off to the sides. This is nowhere near as dynamic and exciting a presentation as Deep Rising, but the material suits what is a rather lame movie well enough.

Deep Rising / The Puppet Masters Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included.

Deep Rising / The Puppet Masters Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mill Creek's double Blu-ray release of Deep Rising and The Puppet Masters brings a couple of midlevel Monster movies to high definition with very good results when matched with the very low price point. The movies are little more than throwaway time killers, though Deep Rising has found a small following as an ultra-violent and entertainingly brain-dead sort of roller coaster ride. The Puppet Masters lags far behind the source novel and the movie is far, far too long, but it might make a decent back end of a double feature with Deep Rising on a long sick day. Both movies offer good video. Deep Rising's soundtrack is aggressive and fun, while The Puppet Masters' is merely adequate. No extras are included. Recommended largely on the price.