7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.6 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
Thelma and Louise are accidental outlaws on a desperate flight across the Southwest after a tragic incident at a roadside bar. With a determined detective on their trail, a sweet-talking hitchhiker in their path and a string of crimes in their wake, a high-speed thrill ride and empowering personal odyssey follows even as the law closes in.
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonaldDrama | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: DTS 5.1
Italian: DTS 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
French/German/Italian: DTS 5.1 (768 kbps, 48kHz, 24-bit) lossy / Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English SDH, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The dynamic duos in road movies—think Bonnie & Clyde, Holly and Kit in Badlands, or Sailor and Lula in Wild at Heart—are always running away from something, and I don’t just mean the cops. In 1991’s Thelma & Louise, an exclusively female film in a genre where women are usually just along for the ride, the two protagonists are fleeing their small town, male-dominated lives. Upon its release, the movie was widely hailed as the first meaningful feminist road film, taking typically masculine motifs—guns and convertibles, the allure of the open highway—and repurposing them for a story about female retribution and expression. (An alternate reading is that Thelma and Louise have simply been “masculinized,” but that’s a theme for another essay.) What often gets overlooked amid all the critical girl-power talk, however, is just how energetic and fun—and funny—the film is from a purely entertainment perspective. Twenty years on, it’s still a pedal-to-the-metal hoot, thanks largely to the captivating performances of its two leads, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon.
Thelma and Louise
MGM's recent catalog releases have all looked wonderful, and Thelma & Louise is no exception, coasting onto Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that displays refined clarity and vivid color. The print itself is in near-perfect condition—I only spotted a few blink-and-you-miss-them white specks throughout—and the film's grain structure is unobtrusive and un-tampered-with, showing no signs of excessive DNR, edge enhancement, contrast boosting, or any other forms of digital tweaking. There are sporadic soft shots, as you might expect in any film, but the increase in resolution will be immediately appreciable to anyone who owns the Thelma & Louise DVD. Fine detail is easily visible where you look for it most—the textures of the actors' faces, clothing, the surfaces of in-focus props—and outlines are crisp without looking overly edgy. Set in the southwest, you can expect an abundance of dusty earth-tones laid out underneath a creamy blue sky. Black levels could possibly be a hair deeper—they skew towards grayish in some of the darker scenes—but color is dense, contrast is spot-on, and shadow delineation never proves to be a problem. You'd also have to be an eagle-eyed perfectionist to spot any compression artifacts. I really didn't see anything worth mentioning. Overall, if you enjoy the film, you'll definitely find the visual boost in clarity from the DVD to be worth the upgrade.
The film's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is an improvement as well, although not nearly as drastic as the picture quality. Generally, when compared to the DVD, the sound is incrementally cleaner and brighter, with a more robust dynamic range. The surround speakers are most often used to envelope us in Hans Zimmer's bluesy, pleasingly uncharacteristic score—there are no pounding timpani drums here—although you'll also hear some quietly immersive ambience from time to time, like barroom chatter. While Thelma & Louise has its occasional moments of aural action— gunshots ping through the rears, a tanker trunk explodes, cars zip between channels, a helicopter buzzes over our heads, etc.—there's nothing that rises to the level of a true showpiece audio moment. And that's okay. Dialogue is the focus here, and it's always clear and comprehensible, with no muffling or clipping. Subtitles are available in a variety of languages.
There are no new materials here, unfortunately—I'd love some kind of 20-years-later retrospective—but Thelma & Louise's Blu-ray debut includes all the best content from its DVD release, including a comprehensive, one-hour making-of documentary and two audio commentaries.
Rooted in the long tradition of road movies but taking on a lightly feminist bent, Thelma and Louise is a classic from the early '90s that has aged surprisingly well. Fans will be glad to hear that the film has held up visually too, with a high definition transfer from MGM that's simply gorgeous, especially whenever director Ridley Scott turns his lens toward the iconic scenery of the American southwest. Recommended!
1991
Awards O-Ring Slipcover
1991
1991
20th Anniversary Edition
1991
1971
2010
1993
1967
1988
2014
1992
2014
Shout Select
1973
1998
2006
2007
2010
80th Anniversary Edition
1942
Collector's Edition
1978
2017
2013
Cidade dos Homens
2007
2009
1986