7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 3.3 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.8 |
During a routine training mission in the Scottish Highlands, a small squad of British soldiers find a wounded Special Forces captain and the bloody remains of his team. When the savage attackers return, the men are rescued by a zoologist, who identifies what hunts them as werewolves. Without transport or communications, the group is forced to retreat to a farmhouse to wait for the full moon to disappear at dawn.
Starring: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby, Liam Cunningham, Darren MorfittHorror | 100% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
AC3 Embedded: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 2.0 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
The trick to survival lies not in running and hiding but in removing your enemy's capacity to
hunt you down.
There are "guy" movies, and then there are guy movies. Commando and Predator are two that
spring immediately to mind as the sorts of flicks that deliver straight meat-and-potatos goodness,
passing on even a hint of a love story or some sort of external drama to take away from the
wall-to-wall carnage. Even a movie like Die Hard, for as
fantastic
as it is, sneaks in a bit of a romantic/family twist that does heighten the dramatic angle for that
added shot of personal danger that ups the ante of the action, but few movies truly set out to
entertain a male audience with nothing but guns, muscles, mayhem, monsters, and blood, and
Dog Soldiers is one example of that all-too-rare breed of moviemaking magic. Packed
with gruesome carnage, thousands of rounds of spent ammunition, and
featuring several hulking werewolves with an empty belly and a craving for human intestines,
Director Neil Marshall's (The Descent, Doomsday) breakout
picture is the very definition of guy-centric filmmaking.
Looking for trouble.
Dog Soldiers features a barely-passable-as-high-definition 1080p, 1.85:1-framed transfer. Shots that resemble even a high definition transfer of mediocre quality are far and few between; several up-close shots reveal a decent level of fine detail in soldiers' uniforms, but otherwise, there's virtually nothing positive to say about this one. It must be taken into account, however, that Dog Soldiers wasn't shot to look, nor was it intended to be, glossy and colorful. The 16mm film stock combined with plenty of nighttime and otherwise darkened shots and a deliberately drab color palette that features primarily blacks, grays, browns, and dark greens, just doesn't add up to equal visual bliss. Still, the image is riddled with terrible edge enhancement that makes many objects -- particularly trees -- appear to have thick force fields around them. The print is marred with plenty of nicks, scratches, a few odd vertical and horizontal lines, and random debris. Sharpness is minimal; in fact, much of the film looks soft, with several scenes appearing downright fuzzy and borderline indistinct. Grain appears heavily throughout. Though this -- or any -- transfer must be given some leeway for the gritty original elements, this Blu-ray release of Dog Soldiers nevertheless features plenty of other issues that drag the rating down considerably.
Dog Soldiers' Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack fares little better than the video presentation. Though much of the film's first act features virtually no back channel activity, the second and third acts deliver plenty of distinct effects as the werewolves beat on the top of a vehicle or rattle the doors around the country house. Unfortunately, plenty of other sound effects play as downright pathetic. A gunshot in one of the first scenes sounds puny and delivers about the same intensity as would a tennis ball dropped onto a carpeted floor. Automatic weapons fire later in the film sounds more like battery-operated toys than real guns. Buzzing helicopter rotors in one scene fare a bit better, with the blades seemingly slicing through the soundstage to decent effect. Still, neither music nor general sound effects play with anything even remotely close to reference-quality clarity, and dialogue, while generally clear, occasionally sounds muffled. Unlike the video, which can look downright horrible, the audio never drops to an unbearable level, but it's certainly not the sort of track that listeners are going to remember long after the movie ends.
All that's included are 1080p trailers for Way of War, The Breed, War, Inc., and Immortal.
Director Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers isn't an outright classic, but it's a fine example of low-budget Action/Horror filmmaking at its finest. What's so remarkable about the film is that nothing in and of itself -- outside of the basic premise and Marshall's superb direction -- is particularly remarkable. The script is fine but the revelations at the end leave a bit to be desired, the creature effects are good but not great, and the acting is fine but not memorable. However, none equate to a death blow for the film, and all told Dog Soldiers does remarkably well considering its low-budget nature and several otherwise inconsequential parts. This Blu-ray release isn't as fortunate in its ability to overcome obstacles. Though the film isn't the most pretty by default, the transfer barely passes for high definition material. Also featuring a lackluster-at-best soundtrack and no extras, fans might want to think twice about discarding that old DVD copy, even given the film's current bargain-basement price.
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