Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

MacArthur Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 8, 2017

MacArthur opens with an interesting crawl with a few lines covering the man's divisive nature, unflappable military command performance in World War II's Pacific theater and during the Korean conflict, and how his battlefield actions and strategies directly and indirectly affected millions of lives around the world. The movie builds up a man of enormous stature and importance in that opening text but can't quite deliver the sort of powerful but picturesque compliment its subject commands. Director Joseph Sargent (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three) largely focuses the film on his subject in an often cramped, closely composed frame that allows his actor to do the work of bringing Douglas MacArthur to life. The movie lacks the vitality and stature of its subject, playing with a disconnect of style that tells the story of the man but never cinematically explores it in a meaningful way.

D-Mac.

With the Japanese Army suffocating the Philippines and political posturing and a crisis of conscience stymieing his options, General Douglas MacArthur (Gregory Peck) has no choice but to evacuate from Corregidor with his family on a PT boat through treacherous, mine-infested waters to Australia's safer shores. From that island-continent, he manages the war, battles to have anyone who will not fight removed from command and replaced by anyone who will, and reshapes the course of the war. The film follows his battlefield mastery, his political conflicts with Presidents Roosevelt (Dan O'Herlihy) and Truman (Ed Flanders), overseeing the end of hostilities, and engagement in the Korean conflict. The film is told in a series of flashbacks as the General addresses West Point cadets.

MacArthur is not a War picture in the most traditional sense of the term, even as there are various scenes of battlefield action, Naval canons blasting, and other hallmark genre staples. But these are scene-setters, interspersed into the narrative to better define the title character's inner workings and shape the world and his view of it as it's presented in the film. Even away from the field of battle, fighting his conscience prior to a strategic escape from the Philippines, planning the next phase of the war, leading the surrender ceremony, or negotiating terms thereafter, the movie maintains its focus on the character, both in stature as a warrior and his heart as a man. The movie, then, is very succinctly but directly titled. It's both dramatized biography and layered portrait of a complex man in a difficult world, a man whose actions have come to shape geopolitical and social structures around the globe. The movie explores that large sphere of influence to satisfaction, maybe a little stiffly and with a dull, straightforward approach. But its actor does a good job of hitting the high points and exploring the inner man, even if the film's structure lacks the grace and fluidity of other, similar dramatically enhanced biographical films.

Gregory Peck, certainly one of the most dependable, gifted, and physically commanding actors of his, or any, time, delivers a solid, balanced performance, one that seems inhibited by the movie's rather simplistic, up-tight approach that seems to challenge him to carry every scene and explore the character's every ounce of depth in each frame without receiving much support in the way of more flattering, accentuating filmmaking. Peck does well to define and grow the character, hitting all of the highlights and the phrases and general posture for which the character is widely known. Yet the film feels rather empty, a dry, scene-to-scene recreation of a career in highlights and less a flowing, engaging narrative arc. Any and all support pieces and characters -- even Presidents of the United States -- seem to disappear into the background, rightly dominated by Peck's MacArthur but never quite able to add to his story in more than a crude support manner.

MacArthur Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

MacArthur's 1080p transfer is another in a growing line of occasionally adequate and somewhat serviceable but mostly bland catalogue releases from Universal. The image is extraordinarily flat and and painfully lifeless. A blooming effect blows out the lettering on the opening titles. The color palette in general appears very bland. Even green vegetation doesn't produce much punch or vitality. Certainly khaki military colors are flat and monochromatic, and various interior shots are fatigued and dull. Colors are very basic, nothing more. Flesh tones are a bit pasty and black levels struggle to hold depth, often pushing too bright, particularly around the frame's corners. Detailing is bland. Whether those same khaki uniforms or natural vegetation, there's barely any serious crispness to the image, and its inherent flatness does it no favors, either. The image enjoys a few upticks in stability, clarity, detail, depth (even in many close-up shots), and general filmic excellence at times; the surrender sequence midway through the film is a good example where grain tightens up (away from its clumping here and excessive sharpness there) and results in a very pleasing, cinematic image. Generally, however, the transfer struggles to impress. It's watchable but certainly not any kind of definitive home presentation.

MacArthur Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

MacArthur features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack that has its moments but more often than not delivers a sonically uninteresting but serviceably adequate listen. The opening music is a highlight. It's well detailed and nicely spaced, presenting richly and with impressive vitality. The same cannot be said of many other musical cues or sound effects. Dialogue can occasionally push a bit shallow, and MacArthur's microphone address upon reaching Australia delivers no range at all; it's very cramped and disappointingly tinny. On the flip side, the Japanese surrender sequence -- visually and aurally the single best one in the movie -- offers much more, and borderline substantial, reverberation as the ceremony carries around the stage. Several action scenes lack much authoritative depth or wallop, but the track surprises a few times when planes zip about with full surround usage and natural imaging about the stage.

MacArthur Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of MacArthur contains no supplemental content. No top menu is included; audio and subtitle options may be accessed in-film via the pop-up menu.

MacArthur Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

MacArthur's subject is a legend of military strategy and the film explores how his efforts, and his physical stature and command of not only the room or the battlefield but of himself, shaped the geopolitical landscape of the world around him in a way few men ever have. The movie, however, is a rather dull, straightforward, structurally tired picture that hits all of the MacArthur highlights but does so almost in rote. Peck brings a decent sense of passion to the part and fills the shoes admirably, but the rest of the movie around him defines the very proper and descriptive movie review term "meh." Universal's featureless Blu-ray comes with video and audio that are both decent-to-good at their best, passable generally, and disappointing here and there. Worth a look for history buffs if it's priced very, very aggressively.