5.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Jason Voorhees returns with a new look, a new machete, and his same murderous attitude as he is awakened on a spaceship in the 25th century.
Starring: Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, Jonathan Potts, Peter MensahHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 33% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, German SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy (as download)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Jason X is being released as part of Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection. When New Line Cinema sent Jason Voorhees to hell in the ninth installment of the Friday the 13th series, they never expected "hell" to become development hell. As the years rolled on, producer Sean Cunningham began considering ideas for an interim film to keep the flame burning while the long-delayed Freddy vs. Jason continued on its lengthy detour. After many pitches, one more far-fetched than the next, it was screenwriter Todd Farmer who persuaded the reluctant Cunningham to consider a story with Jason in outer space. One can only imagine the state of desperation that Cunningham must have reached even to consider the idea. Due to internal problems at New Line Cinema, the U.S. release of Jason X was postponed until 2002, although shooting was completed two years earlier. The film was a box office dud, the third worst in the history of the franchise after Jason Takes Manhattan and Jason Goes to Hell. Unfortunately for the studio, Jason X cost much more than those films, due to the CG budget which, while modest by the standards of a major studio, drove the cost of a Friday the 13th movie into the stratosphere. But Jason X deserves a second look. It's the wittiest and most creative variation on the Jason Voorhees character since director Tom McLoughlin's invocation of Universal and Hammer horror films in Jason Lives. When Farmer dreamed up the notion of sending Jason into space, he wasn't stealing from random sources, like the pilferers who slapped telekinesis onto The New Blood or snatched bodies for Jason Goes to Hell. Farmer actually had enough smarts to borrow from a source that shared its narrative DNA with the original Friday the 13th—namely, Alien, which its writers described as "Jaws in space". Many, including the creators of Jason X, have compared Jason Voorhees to the shark in Jaws. Like both the shark and the unstoppable alien of Ridley Scott's film, Jason appears, kills and vanishes, but he himself has no character "arc". He doesn't change from one kill to the next, or even one movie to the next. It's Jason's predatory single-mindedness that drives the arcs of others—if they survive.
Although Jason X was shot on film by cinematographer Derick V. Underschultz (HBO's In Treatment), every frame was scanned into the digital realm at Blu-ray resolution, where the effects were designed and rendered, editing was done and the final color timing was finished. This is common practice today, but it was considered revolutionary when Jason X was made. The result, whether output to film, as would have been the case for the 2003 release, or translated to Blu-ray without any intervening analog stage, as is presumably the case here, has a substantially different look than any prior Friday the 13th film. The image on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is generally bright, detailed and colorful. Even in scenes set in environments with low light, darkness is never total. Isaac made a conscious decision to head in the opposite direction from the dark dystopian futures that have become standard in science fiction movies. Wherever possible, he had Underschultz (or the CG techs in post-production) keep the scene illuminated. Even the desolated Earth isn't plunged into total darkness; it's just a dirty brown mess of swirling dust and wind. The color palette of the various quarters aboard the Grendel and its shuttle is soft and pleasing by design, in keeping with the benign vision of the future that the arrival of Jason violently disrupts. The blacks of space outside the ship are solid and deep. If there is any criticism to be made of the image, it's that the CG work is somewhat dated, lacking the organic quality that today's best CG artisans have the experience and computing power to lend their creations. However, this is not the fault of the Blu-ray. Fine detail in non-CG elements might also have been improved if an upper limit hadn't been initially imposed by the decision to shoot a smaller negative and scan the film elements at no more than HDTV resolution. (This is explained in more detail in the accompanying featurette.) Again, though, this is not a fault in the Blu-ray. Jason X shares a BD-50 with Jason Goes to Hell. However, the virtual absence of extras for the latter film has allowed sufficient room for the compressionist to deliver an average bitrate of 22.93 Mbps, which is somewhat lower than one would like for a film with so much action but is enough to provide an image without noticeable artifacts.
Outer space has always provided sound designers with room to play, and Jason X is no exception. The good ship Grendel is alive with sounds of equipment and machinery, both mechanical and electronic. Sequences like the nanotechnology reconstruction of Rowan (and later Jason) are full of subtle sound cues accompanying the labor of the tiny machines. Big effects like the roaring winds of the now-deserted Earth, or the cryostasis imposed on Jason and Rowan at the beginning, or a spectacular collision between the Grendel and a space station, or an explosion rigged by the Grendel survivors as an emergency life-saving measure, all register with forceful impact and the full involvement of the surround speaker array. The track has wide dynamic range and deep bass extension when it's needed. This is the first Friday the 13th film to have a truly impressive 5.1 soundmix. The Blu-ray's presentation, of course, is lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1. Harry Manfredini once again supplied the score, but now that he was writing for an entirely different kind of Jason film, Manfredini was free to write in a new style. Taking full advantage of the expanded audio capability, he wrote a more expansive musical experience to accompany Jason into the final frontier.
Farmer's script left open the possibility of pursuing Jason's story in the world of "Earth 2", but the box office failure of Jason X doomed any such possibility. Besides, New Line was eager to move forward with its plans for Jason vs. Freddy, which finally hit theaters the year after Jason X's U.S. release. Jason X stands alone as a quirky variation on the series' core theme of the terror caused by an unstoppable, unreasoning killer who has locked on you for no special reason and can't be bargained with. That kind of monster is truly . . . alien. Recommended.
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