5.2 | / 10 |
Users | 3.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Archeologist and former priest Lankester Merrin is hired to excavate a church that has been found buried in sands of British East Africa. Accompanied by a young priest, Father Francis, Merrin discovers an ancient hiding place where evil has been buried for centuries.
Starring: Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco, James D'Arcy, Remy Sweeney, Julian WadhamHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 43% |
Supernatural | 24% |
Mystery | 16% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.00:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish 2.0=Latin; Japanese is hidden
English SDH, French, German SDH, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Exorcist: The Beginning is being released both separately and as part of The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology. When Morgan Creek decided to shelve director Paul Schrader's effort at an Exorcist prequel (subsequently released as Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist), it turned to Finnish action director Renny Harlin, the helmer of Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Cutthroat Island. In other words, Morgan Creek jumped from a creator of art house fare to a maker of summer blockbusters (though not all of them paid off), because the arty guy hadn't made a scary enough movie for their box office hopes. They also gave Harlin twice the budget they'd allowed Schrader, which, at $60 milllion, was still less than Harlin was used to (a point he stresses in his commentary). After a complete overhaul of the script by Alexi Hawley (who has since written for the TV series Castle, Body of Proof and The Following), Harlin recast key roles and jumped into an accelerated production schedule for an August 2004 opening. Morgan Creek got exactly what they wanted. It just wasn't an Exorcist film. Harlin correctly recognized that the movie audience had changed since William Friedkin's 1973 classic, but somehow he convinced himself that grafting a slew of references to the original Exorcist onto an inflated tale of huge battles, far-fetched conspiracies, gory effects and over-the-top action sequences—enhanced with rapid cutting and the latest in CGI—would create a film that would stand out from the pack. It didn't. If anything, the film suffered by comparison both to Friedkin's original and to the much grander fantasy spectacles being created by the likes of Peter Jackson, whose Lord of the Rings trilogy Harlin was clearly trying to evoke with the opening of Beginning. But the essence of both Friedkin's original and the initial prequel script written by William Wisher and Caleb Carr was its intimate focus on individuals. Such material has never been Harlin's strength. Instead of chasing an elusive blockbuster audience, Morgan Creek would have been better off shelving the notion of an Exorcist prequel altogether. (For further information on the troubled history of the Exorcist prequel, please see the Blu-ray review of Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist.)
Like Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist, Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning was shot by Vittorio Storaro in his Univisium format, which is discussed in the Dominion Blu-ray review and has a native aspect ratio of 2.00:1. However, Harlin's preferred format is 2.35:1, which is how Beginning was released to theaters and is presented on Blu-ray, slightly cropping the Univisium image at top and bottom). Beginning was also Harlin's first film to be completed on a digital intermediate (an experience he describes in his commentary), which was still a relatively new process for feature films in 2004. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from digital files, although one cannot discount the possibility of further manipulation or filtering to facilitate the compression of this 114-minute film onto a BD-25 with an average bitrate of 17.74 Mbps. The Blu-ray image reproduces Storaro's trademark use of color as an expressive medium, which has become even more precise as a result of the DI process, with portions of the film being desaturated to the point of becoming almost black-and-white, while others are intense almost to the point of oversaturation. Blacks and shadows are precisely controlled and reproduced, as are densities and textures, although this doesn't always favor the CG shots. Detail is generally quite good, but the film's grain texture is virtually invisible, and it is impossible to say whether this occurred during the DI process or at a later stage (which is a big reason why DIs have mooted so many common elements of a Blu-ray evaluation).
Beginning's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, provides the full-on sonic assault that one expects from a contemporary thiller-cum-action film, whether it's the blacksmiths pounding metal in the streets of Cairo (a deliberate reference to the opening of the original Exorcist, as Harlin confirms in his commentary), the demonic "stalking" of Dr. Sarah in her clinic, the attempted exorcism by the tribe of young Joseph, the supernatural sandstorm that isolates the dig site from the outside world or Merrin's climactic battle with the demon Pazuzu. Creaks, groans, winds, otherworldly voices, gunfire and other assorted noise take advantage of both the full surround array and the soundtrack's broad dynamic range. The dialogue is always clear, including the demon's vile pronouncements (although they're nowhere near as shocking as when twelve-year-old Regan spewed obscenities in 1973). Trevor Rabin supplied the action/adventure score.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2005 DVD of The Beginning (with one possible question mark, noted below).
There's nothing especially wrong with Harlin's Exorcist prequel, but there's nothing memorable about it either. It leaves no strong impression, which is not the desired effect when you're trying to create an origin story for the title character of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) horror films in modern cinema. If the prequel's original director, John Frankenheimer, had lived to complete the project, he might well have made something as loud and boisterous as Harlin's movie, because Frankenheimer could direct action with the best of them (see, for example, his underrated Ronin). But Frankenheimer understood the importance of maintaining the focus on character, and that's what Beginning lacks. Not recommended on its own, but for students of the medium, Beginning and Dominion are fascinating companion pieces.
2005
Collector's Edition
1977
Collector's Edition | + Director's Cut on BD
1990
50th Anniversary Edition
1973
1992
1993
1952
Unrated
2004
2005
Collector's Edition
1982
Collector's Edition
1988
2002
1995
1984
2003
Unrated Director's Cut
2010
1981
Theatrical + Unrated Alternate Cut
2007
2018
2005