The Loft Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Loft Blu-ray Movie Review

Space for rent.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman May 14, 2015

Director Erik Van Looy has remade his own 2008 Belgian film Loft for American audiences, and he probably should have just stuck with the original. There's nothing "lofty" about The Loft, an Erotic Thriller that boasts a star-studded cast and not much more, a movie that's about 0% original, 90% flashback, 100% tedious, and holds a 13% approval rating on the review aggregators. It's a lumbering, structurally bland, dramatically recycled, and poorly developed film with little, if anything, to offer in the way of plot creativity or deep interest in the characters. The movie is technically slick and looks good in all its black-blue-gray glory, but it leaves precious little room for praise as a bottom dweller in the erotic "whodunit" category.

The problem.

Five men -- Vincent Stephens (Karl Urban), Luke Seacord (Wentworth Miller), Chris Vanowen (James Marsden), Marty Landry (Eric Stonestreet), and Phillip Williams (Matthias Schoenaerts) -- share a loft in a large high rise of Vincent's design and use the space to entertain girlfriends and mistresses, avoiding any traps of credit card bills or other paper trails for their wives to follow. Each has a key, and there's no other way in or out. One day, Luke arrives and finds a dead body in the bed, handcuffed to the post and the sheets drenched in blood. In a panic, he calls Vincent, and gradually the remaining men arrive to survey the scene. The film flashes forwards to their questioning by police and backwards to the first time they each took a key to the loft and the subsequent slow unravel of their sexual hideaway and, with that, their trust in one another.

It's told almost entirely through flashbacks, but with material this flat, Director Erik Van Looy and Writers Bart De Pauw and Wesley Strick could have told the movie forwards, backwards, or sideways, and it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. The Loft falls for most every avoidable trap in the book, assuming that atmosphere, big names, mystery, and erotic underpinnings will be enough to lure audiences its way, and perhaps its right, but it won't leave many pleased with the experience. The Loft relies on simple, overused, and predictable genre tropes. There's the in-fighting, every character with motivation and various secrets, largely uninteresting backstories, and not much pure chemistry between the friends. They feel thrown together rather than organically developed, and their friendship seems built only on shared infidelity, alcohol, and flirting with temptations to which they frequently give in. They're a largely unlikable bunch, kind of like a bad Comedy troupe forced into a movie that's completely out of their element and desperately trying to make it more appealing by playing the parts with an obviously fake edge and manufactured intensity. Despite its name cast, there's not a good effort in the movie, though one can probably lay the blame for that at the feet of the writers rather than the actors who don't have anything appealing or smart with which to work.

But perhaps the most glaring weakness in The Loft is the sheer predictability of it all. It's not that the plot twists are apparent minutes into the film -- there are a few nifty little reveals here and there -- it's instead in the manufactured, drag-and-drop, assembly line style with which it's all put together. The movie goes through all of the usual permutations -- surprise, anger, mistrust, blame -- as the characters piece together what happened while the audience flashes backwards in time and journeys with poorly developed characters with no sense of attachment with one another or the audience. The Loft offers no technical ingenuity, either, relying on the same sort of moody and dark world where fine appointments and (generally) high class people mesh with grisly murder and dark secrets. It's like a computer analyzed every movie of this type and, when asked to make one that most closely resembles all the others, spit this out. That's how soulless, straightforward (despite the flashbacks), and devoid of any kind of character this movie feels. It's empty and not worth the movie watching time or effort on any level.

The Loft Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

At least it looks good. The Loft's 1080p transfer, sourced from a digital shoot, showcases a clean, clear image, one that's mildly flat but that presents a sharp, well defined picture. Details impress at every turn, whether the nicely appointed loft furnishings, high dollar suits, or bare skin. The 1080p muscle helps produce a consistently crisp picture that reveals natural, clearly visible background details across many locations, from sun-drenched outdoor weddings to darker bar interiors. Colors are even and present nicely, even as the movie favors blues, blacks and grays. Red blood and lipstick are the exception, but other scattered hues are featured with good, naturally precise coloring. Neither black levels nor flesh tones present any cause for concern. Very mild noise creeps in at times, but Universal's image is otherwise free of any distracting blemishes.

The Loft Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Loft sounds terrific. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack dazzles from the opening moments as rain falls with a lifelike natural immersion through every speaker with precise sonic details as it hits the roof of a car. Gentle thunder rolls through the stage, too, and the moment is accentuated by a heavy crash, blaring alarms, and other fine-tuned effects that seamlessly pull the listener into the frenzied moment. The track features plenty of lighter precise and enveloping atmospherics, from small outdoor bits to full-on party details that feature chatter and blaring music filling the backgrounds. Score is clear and precise, with a healthy, vibrant clarity throughout the entire range and effortless spacing through both the front and the back. At its core, however, The Loft is a dialogue-intensive film. The spoken word plays with a natural richness and authenticity from the center channel.

The Loft Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Loft contains no film-related extras. Trailers for The Grey, Sabotage, Nightcrawler, Killer Elite, Homefront and Side Effects are included. Inside the Blu-ray case, buyers will find a DVD copy of the film as well as a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy.

The Loft Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even stretching there's not much good to say about The Loft. Sure it boasts a star-studded cast that would be the envy of many films, and it's well made on a purely technical level, but there's no draw, no allure, no sex appeal, nothing. It's creatively vapid and an emotional void. It gives the audience no reason to care, no sense of anticipation as it maneuvers through all of the manufactured and expected bits, even as a few minor twists are thrown in to keep up the appearance of "fresh." Universal's Blu-ray is unsurprisingly devoid of special features. Strong video and audio alone cannot save this release. Skip it.