7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A high school wrestler in Spokane, Washington, is pursuing a demanding training regimen for an underdog match against a top-rated opponent, when a distraction appears in the person of a beautiful young drifter who takes up temporary residence at his home.
Starring: Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino, Michael Schoeffling, Ronny Cox, Daphne ZunigaSport | 100% |
Coming of age | 50% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Writer John Irving was a huge fan of Vision Quest, Terry Davis' young adult novel about a high school
wrestler, because Irving is a life-long wrestling fanatic, a former high school wrestler and coach,
who routinely incorporates the sport into his own fiction (and cameos as a referee in the film
version of The World According to
Garp). Director Harold Becker's film adaptation of Vision
Quest retains a devoted following among the sport's practitioners and fans, but that alone doesn't
explain the film's modest success when it was released in 1985 or its continued popularity. The
film benefitted from several happy accidents, including the appearance in a small role of a newly
emerging singer, who, by the time the film was released, had exploded into the worldwide
phenomenon known as Madonna. With her music video of the film's romantic ballad, "Crazy for
You", playing almost hourly on MTV, Vision Quest received a massive PR boost.
Even leaving aside Madonna's involvement, Vision Quest is a time capsule of the early Eighties.
Its rock-laden soundtrack is as evocative of the period as the more famous playlist of The
Breakfast Club. The disarming directness and naivete of its farm boy protagonist reflect a more
innocent time that was already fading into memory. The film enjoys the advantage of Becker's
choice to shoot on location in the novel's setting of Spokane, Washington, giving Vision Quest a
lived-in visual style distinct from the glossier fare that would soon dominate theater screens.
Vision Quest is the latest example of a Blu-ray released by the Warner Archive Collection in
response to fan requests. Until now, the film has been poorly treated on digital media, with a
1998 DVD that was a quickie port of the pan & scan VHS master, followed by a burned-on-demand widescreen DVD in 2012. But now WAC has
remastered Vision Quest to produce a home video version worthy of the film's enduring appeal.
Vision Quest was photographed by the eminent cinematographer Owen Roizman, who began his
career filming glossy commercials but acquired a reputation as a specialist in gritty urban realism
after shooting The French Connection. The
latter skill was well-suited to Vision Quest, which
was filmed almost entirely in real locations that Roizman captured with a comfortably
naturalistic texture and palette.
For the film's Blu-ray debut, the Warner Archive Collection
commissioned a badly needed fresh scan of an interpositive, which was performed at 2K by
Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility, followed by color-correction and cleanup. The
resulting 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray may be somewhat controversial, because WAC has
resisted the temptation (too often indulged by both filmmakers and technical crews) to give
Vision Quest a contemporary digital makeover. The film has a grainy texture and an analog
softness that WAC's presentation faithfully retains without sacrificing image detail. Blacks are accurate, but shadow detail in dark scenes is often
lacking, which isn't a result of so-called "crush" (a term so misused that it ought to be retired) but of realistic lighting. The earth-toned
palette is muted and understated, with the noteworthy exception of wrestling matches featuring
strong overhead light and team uniforms in bright primary colors. It is certainly no accident that
the official color of Louden's team is red and that bright reds follow him elsewhere (e.g., the
waiter's jacket he wears for his job). It's a visual expression of the passionate nature for which he
spends the entire film seeking an outlet.
WAC has mastered Vision Quest at its usual high average bitrate, here 34.99 Mbps, and the
encode faithfully reproduces the film's analog quality without introducing artifacts.
Vision Quest was released in Dolby Stereo, and WAC has taken the soundtrack from the Dolby print master and encoded it in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. When played through a surround decoder, the mix remains largely front oriented except for the musical selections, which spread through the speaker array. The film's sound effects are relatively quiet, except for the wrestling scenes, both in training and in the climactic match, where sounds of bodies hitting mats (and each other) are often deliberately amplified. Occasional lines of dialogue are muffled, but this is a function of the original mix. By far the most notable element of the sound design is the generous selection of memorable Eighties tunes, including Journey's "Only the Young" (which opens and closes the film), Red Rider's "Lunatic Fringe" (which accompanies Louden's training) and, of course, Madonna's "Crazy for You" (which becomes the film's romantic soul). Incidental scoring was supplied by Eighties fixture Tangerine Dream (Miracle Mile and Risky Business), but there's very little of it, except during the final match.
The only extras are green band (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:30) and red band (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:40) trailers, which are nearly identical. That may not be much, but it's two more extras than the 1998 DVD had. (The video of "Crazy for You" could not be included due to rights issues.)
I'm not a wrestler, but I've always enjoyed Vision Quest, despite its pile of plot contrivances and
character cliches. Like Louden Swain, it's an intensely sincere film—often foolish but always
admirable in its youthful aspirations and idealism. WAC's Blu-ray gives the film a quality
presentation that is long overdue. Highly recommended.
Remastered
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