6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Small-town waitress DG has always felt like an outsider and experienced strange, recurring visions of a magical storm. However, dreams soon become reality when the evil witch Azkadellia transports DG and her parents to the Outer Zone. Set in the spirit of L. Frank Baum's classic.
Starring: Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming, Raoul Max Trujillo, Kathleen RobertsonFantasy | 100% |
Adventure | 96% |
Sci-Fi | 46% |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Remember those halcyon days of yesteryear when Syfy was the Sci Fi Channel and walking down the vaunted Yellow Brick Road meant The Wizard of Oz, or at the very least Elton John? Then you’re most likely the wrong demographic to completely enjoy Tin Man, the post-modernist winkfest revision of L. Frank Baum’s masterpiece. The irony of course is that Tin Man originally aired when Syfy was the Sci Fi Channel, as part of that network’s burgeoning entrée into original film-length programming, a trend that has continued with a handful of these “reimaginings” of well-known source material (e.g., Alice, the recent update of Alice in Wonderland). The first question one is prone to ask when confronted with one of these strange mélanges is, “Was this really necessary?,” to which I rather forcefully answer, “No, of course not.” Given that preemptive strike, you might think that Tin Man is just another worthless telefilm, an okay time killer and little else. Perhaps elevated by its relatively high budget (at least in the picayune terms of television—if you can $20 million picayune), some appealing performances, and an imaginative production design (including some above average CGI), Tin Man manages to at least partially escape the black hole it dug for itself by basing itself on one of the best-known and most beloved sources in the modern entertainment era. Anyone who was born in the post-WWII timeframe, at least in the western world, has no doubt seen The Wizard of Oz multiple times, so often in fact that the typical viewer can recite lines along with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and, yes, the Tin Man, not to mention Oz himself. True aficionados can quote “Yip” Harburg’s lyrics verbatim and hum large swaths of Harold Arlen’s gorgeous song score. If fewer have actually read Baum’s source novel, the basic outline of the plot and certainly the characters themselves are so soundly imprinted on most people’s consciousnesses that it seems almost brash to attempt a re-do.
Zooey Deschanel is D.G.
Tin Man came out on SD-DVD a couple of years ago and looked pretty darned good indeed. Prepare yourself for a rather amazing upgrade with this new Blu-ray, which deserves kudos for its full 1080p presentation with a VC-1 codec and a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Two aspects of the image are noticeably better on this release, the sharpness and the saturation of the color. While there was certainly nothing to complain about on the SD-DVD release, the difference here is more than noticeable, with a crispness of detail that really helps to make this one of the best looking television releases in recent memory. Colors are robust and otherworldly at times, and detail on the costumes and sets is uniformly excellent. Even the matte paintings look better on this release, with more fine detail readily apparent in even fleeting shots. While the superior resolution of the BD puts the lie to some of the CGI elements, they also look decidedly better than they did on the SD-DVD, and are typically far above average for a television movie. Everything from the blood-red lounge of the Mystic Man to the icy blue-white expanses of the northern ice territories of O.Z. are brilliantly reproduced on the Blu-ray. Flesh tones, black levels and contrast are all top notch here. The miniseries itself may have its share of flaws, but the image quality here is excellent.
Also very impressive, at least in the often less ambitious world of television, is the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix provided on this Blu-ray. There are a wealth of immersive ambient effects throughout this series, including some very fun "nature" sounds as our intrepid quartet (later quintet) makes their journey through various alien landscapes. In several interior scenes featuring crowds, voices and ambient clutter fill the surrounds with a very lifelike immersive quality. Dialogue is crisp and clean and foley effects and underscore are very well mixed into the overall soundfield. Tin Man may not have the magic of a Harold Arlen-"Yip" Harburg score, but for a television science fiction "spectacular", it provides a lot of zip and zing which this DTS rendering reproduces with adroit fidelity and excellent dynamic range.
An above-average slew of supplements (all SD) are included on this BD, only some of which appeared previously on the two disc SD-DVD edition.
Tin Man deserves props for attempting the probably impossible: reinventing The Wizard of Oz while attempting to escape any outright comparison with either the Baum novel or the iconic 1939 MGM masterpiece. Unfortunately, that ambition isn't just probably impossible, it is impossible, and there's the rub. Tin Man can never escape the comparisons, no matter how hard or cleverly it tries, and so it's bound to come up short. Given that caveat, however, there's actually quite a bit to enjoy here, at least in dribs and drabs. The production design is quite stunning, the performances are enjoyable, and some of the admittedly opaque twists and turns the plot take have at least some passing emotional resonance and do manage to touch upon the well-known source elements and skew them in unexpected ways. Tin Man also looks and sounds spectacular in this new Blu-ray edition, so fans of the miniseries (and they are legion) will no doubt want to pick this up. Others may want to rent it first to see if this particular yellow brick road gets them where they want to go.
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