5 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Medical students experiment on "near death" experiences that involve past tragedies until the dark consequences begin to jeopardize their lives.
Starring: Elliot Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, Kiersey ClemonsHorror | 100% |
Sci-Fi | 25% |
Mystery | 12% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French (Canada): DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Thai, Vietnamese
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Gothic, dark, disturbing. Director Joel Schumacher’s vision for the seemingly love-it-or-hate-it 1990 film Flatliners, a story of gifted medical students cheating death in search of the ultimate answers to life, extended beyond the vitality and youth and vigor of his hot, up-and-coming cast. In that original film, the students’ working environments were essentially tombs, potential final resting places and reflective testaments to their pursuit of the ultimate darkness and, in contrast, the holders of the ultimate answers. The film boasted hip and hot stars, yes, but throughout the picture they became drained, transformed, forced to explore the real demons that don't exist after death but that rather that have manifest in life. It was, and remains, if nothing else a visually arresting and thematically engrossing film, one that certainly didn’t require a remake or re-imagining but that has nevertheless received one in Director Niels Arden Oplev's film of the same name that shares basic story execution with its 1990 counterpart but otherwise misses the point and feels lost without the supportive structural and visual reinforcements that Schumacher so carefully crafted for his superior film.
Going under.
Flatliners' stylistically clean, bright, sterile, and steely imagery translates very well to Blu-ray, yielding an impressively slick and clean 1080p image with blemishes only few and far between. Textural qualities are by-and-large pleasing, with the smooth, modern hospital equipment and the spartan backgrounds, predominantly down in the basement where the students conduct their experiments, appearing pleasingly sharp and effortlessly defined, with all the metallic and plastic lines offering true, tangible elemental clarity. Faces present with all of the absolute depth and intensive sharpness one could want from the 1080p image, though it's undeniable the movie's quintet of young leads are absent much in the way of serious skin imperfections to be seen. Colors are largely true to location, lighting, and source, with those chilly blues and steely grays presenting against brilliantly bright whites and mostly impressively deep blacks with only a few brighter, less desirable shadow details to be found in only the most challenging of shots. Flesh tones are healthy and balanced with surrounding lighting conditions. Noise is minimal and only one example of aliasing appeared (that's not to say others are not present and perhaps simply not spotted) across a building's top floor at the 11:23 mark.
Flatliners finds sonic life by way of a robust and enjoyable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Voices, describing near-death experiences, swirl around the soundstage to begin the film, presenting with a very good sense of place and transitional movement that immerses the listener in the beautiful yet chilling recounts of various glimpses of the immediate afterlife. Musical presentation offers no room for complaint. Score and popular songs alike are robustly healthy, with plenty of spunk, surround implementation, and low end depth on tap. Atmospheric supports filter through nicely as location demands. Heavier action elements deliver a healthy allotment of room-filling intensity and definition. Dialogue is clean and precise, well prioritized, and consistently positioned in a natural front-center location.
Flatliners contains deleted and extended scenes and a few featurettes. A digital copy code is included with purchase.
Flatliners joins the long and mostly sorry ranks of unnecessary remakes and re-imaginings. The film brings absolutely nothing new to the table, fails to do anything of interest or value with the concept, and only proverbially rearranges the deck chairs on a ship that has long sailed. The original? That's still a movie worth watching, and while this 2017 version isn't entirely without merit -- the first 30 minutes or so are by-and-large fine -- it's just not really worth the 100 or so minutes of time. Sony's Blu-ray, for those inclined to give it a shot anyway, offers excellent video and audio as well as a handful of decent extras, headlined by a few deleted and extended scenes.
2018
2014
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