6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 3.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.
Starring: Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Channing TatumThriller | 100% |
Action | 91% |
Martial arts | 35% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy (as download)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
It’s a little bracing to look back over the career of Steven Soderbergh and realize just what a huge variety of films he’s helmed over the years, films including Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, the Ocean’s Eleven reboot and subsequent trilogy, Solaris, The Good German, The Informant! and Contagion. Has any other contemporary filmmaker traversed such a wide stylistic territory and managed to reinvigorate so many disparate genres? The fact that Soderbergh has visited so many hoary clichés and managed to walk away largely unscathed is something of a cinematic miracle, and so no one should be very surprised that Soderbergh has now wrestled with a mixed martial arts star, and a female one to boot (pun intended), and come out with nary a scratch. Haywire proves that female super spies needn’t be a losing proposition, something that has itself been something of a hoary film and television cliché from at least the days of Modesty Blaise and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Soderbergh is a refreshingly gimmick free filmmaker, eschewing the quick cutting, ultra- jiggly handheld ethos that seems to be most younger directors’ stock in trade, and instead crafts a loosey- goosey narrative that deconstructs its story and reassembles it before the viewer’s very eyes, with a liberal dose of ass kicking action thrown in for good measure. Aside from Soderbergh’s gimmick-free approach, he’s also completely unpretentious about what he wants to do with Haywire. While scenarist Lem Dobbs (who also wrote Soderbergh’s The Limey and Kafka) tries to inject a bit of labyrinthine complexity into the story (largely by virtue of its nonlinear structure), Soderbergh makes no bones (broken or otherwise) that Haywire is at its core nothing more or less than a popcorn flick, a rollicking good time that has enough plot to support its set pieces, and enough rousing set pieces to overcome any deficiencies of that selfsame plot (or, frankly, the characters).
Haywire is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. This is a great looking high definition presentation if it's taken on its own merits, which are once again just subtly skewed from the expected by the ever iconoclastic Steven Soderbergh. How many spy thrillers or mystery films have you seen over the past few years that have been heavily filtered toward the blue end of the spectrum? If you're like I am, probably too many to count. Soderbergh of course doesn't go there, and instead invests large swaths of Haywire with a sort of late summer, early autumn amber ambience that may strike some as odd but which looks nicely hued and surprisingly sharp throughout the film. Close-ups boast a sometimes staggering amount of fine detail, with virtually every pore and wrinkle of Michael Douglas' weathered face clearly on display. The film is awfully dark in several key sequences, and while there isn't outright crush, shadow detail can be on the slightly muddy side at times. Contrast has been intentionally tweaked at times, in line with the color filtering, but overall this is a nicely sharp and clear looking transfer that is nicely filmic and should easily please most discriminating videophiles.
Much like the film itself, Haywire's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix may strike some as rather intermittent for an alleged spy thriller, but when this track does take off, it does so with power, force and a lot of nuance. The film starts out relatively quietly, albeit with some nicely directional ambient environmental sounds, but when the first fight between Carano and Tatum breaks out, all bets are off, and there is a panoply of great foley effects completely enveloping the listener. This roller coaster tendency tends to be repeated throughout the film, with more subdued sections suddenly exploding into bouts of LFE and impressive surround activity. Fidelity is top notch throughout this track, and dynamic range is incredibly wide and varied. The kind of proto-seventies score (by frequent Soderbergh collaborator David Holmes— though Holmes had his score for The Good German rejected by the director) sounds properly retro and fills the surrounds quite nicely in several key sequences.
Haywire is probably going to disappoint those who are expecting an all out fight fest, and it similarly may bewilder longtime Soderbergh fans who might be wanting something a little less mainstream in its ambitions. But for those who just want a fun time at the movies, Haywire delivers in spades, despite its flaws. Carano (who looks like a slightly buff Carla Gugino) is nicely athletic in this performance and also manages to make Mallory more or less believable, something not all that easy given some of the rather ludicrous elements of Lem Dobbs' screenplay. Ewan McGregor is a hoot as the snake oil salesman head of the super secret spy organization, and the film, while chasing after complexity simply for complexity's sake, is brisk and breezy and always entertaining. This Blu-ray looks and sounds great, and even though supplementary materials are awfully meager, this release comes Recommended.
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