6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
If only...The saga of H.M.S. Titanic resonates with "if only..." If only the designers, builders and owners hadn't bought into the ultimately fatal myth of her being unsinkable...If only the chairman of the White Star Line hadn't decided, in a fit of corporate hubris, to try to chop a day off the trans-Atlantic crossing record by ordering the Titanic's speed increased to a dangerous 22-plus knots, even though icebergs were a well-known menace...If only the Titanic had been adequately supplied with lifeboats. There were, in fact, places for only 1,200 people, although 2,228 passengers and crew were aboard the glittering pleasure palace for her maiden — and final — voyage. What makes the Titanic saga so compelling, of course, are the private stories of those who embarked on the fateful crossing, many of whom we meet in this mini-series. In the end, the facts are simple — and grim. The Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 the night of April 14, 1912. At 2:20 a.m.,two hours and forty minutes later, the Titanic literally broke in half and slid under the surface of the Atlantic. Survivors reported a long, stunned silence followed the sinking. Seven hundred five people were rescued, many of them plucked barely alive from the almost calm sea, which was a frigid 28 degrees. Fifteen hundred twenty-three people perished. Most of the bodies were never recovered. To this day, it is a tragedy that grips the imagination.
Starring: Peter Gallagher, George C. Scott, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Eva Marie Saint, Tim CurryHistory | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
None
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 1.5 | |
Audio | 2.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Disaster is unthinkable.
It's an inescapable fact, for better or for worse, that any movie ever made about the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic -- the luxury liner that struck ice
and subsequently sunk, killing many more than survived the incident -- will be compared, one way or another, to James Cameron's epic 1997 film that won many Oscars and won the hearts of moviegoers the world
over. This miniseries, churned out for CBS in 1996 -- a year before Cameron's opus hit theaters -- is remarkably similar. Most of that is because
a true story is a true story. This miniseries stays fairly true to the tale, and it often plays out as simply a much lower budget version of the big boy in
the room. So
it's comfortable and familiar, if nothing else, a curious compliment to the 1997 film and interesting to see another filmmaker's take on the
classic tale of tragedy.
Sailing to history.
Mill Creek has packed the entire two-part film, which runs nearly three hours, onto one 25GB disc, albeit one without a complex soundtrack, or soundtracks, for that matter, subtitle options, or bonus content. Nevertheless, The Titanic: The Complete Mini-Series Event plays with a bitrate that fluctuates throughout the low-to-mid teens, so to say its been unceremoniously crammed onto the disc would be something of an understatement. In any event, the 1.78:1 image -- not the original 4x3 broadcast, though it looks quite natural in its current ratio -- enjoys a few fleeting moments of passable visuals but more often than not succumbs to seriously spiky, snowy grain and noise that dominates the experience. Black levels fluctuate between crush and excessive paleness, usually the latter. Details never excite. The image is mildly soft and hardly finely textured, leaving it looking more like a DVD than a Blu-ray. Colors are likewise pale and lacking even a hint of brilliance, even in the most resplendent, best-lit locations, like the dining area. Pops and speckles and other signs of print wear are evident throughout. Poorly assembled green screen shots and other visuals that appear to have been processed on standard definition video are particularly poor, but the basic filmed elements are a true letdown for a movie with much more promise for quality Blu-ray video.
The Titanic: The Complete Mini-Series Event sails onto Blu-ray with a meager, but baseline effective, Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Unfortunately, the film's Emmy-winning sound mixing isn't given a fair shake. The two-channel track is limiting, but even within those limitations clarity and detail suffer. Music spreads well enough out to the sides, not very far and not very clearly but with enough muscle and definition to skirt by. Little atmospheric effects stretch a tad further, sometimes. While hardly immersive, a few scenes open up nicely enough with complimentary sound, like chatter in a bar or chaos on the deck. Most of the action effects fall flat. The crash into the ice, creaks, moans, rattles, hissing steam, flooding waters, none of it really rises to any sort of agreeable standard for sound reproduction, coming across as more mushy than anything else. Dialogue mostly sounds fine, satisfyingly clear and detailed, though it sometimes struggles to remain maneuvered directly to the middle; it doesn't push to the sides, but imaging could certainly use a little fine-tuning as it drifts a bit off-center.
No supplements are included with this Blu-ray release of The Titanic: The Complete Mini-Series Event. The top menu offers only the options to watch parts one (1:27:12 total runtime) and two (1:26:12 total runtime). No "play all" option is available. No in-film pop-up menu is included.
This Titanic isn't a bad little film. Characters are poorly written and executed, but production design is fine, if not obviously, and understandably, much more modest than the Cameron epic. The film's emotional draw is less created and nurtured and more a result of basic human sympathy in the audience. Still, it's a fair watch for those who wish to see the disaster unfold from a slightly different set of perspectives, on camera and off. The Titanic: The Complete Mini-Series Event features unattractive video and shaky audio. No extras are included. Even Mrs. Liebman thought the technical presentation was poor, and she's not one to care all that much about such things. Her advice: skip it; the video presentation renders it nearly unwatchable, for the most part.
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