6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A demonic djinn attempts to grant its owner three wishes, which will allow him to summon his brethren to earth.
Starring: Tammy Lauren, Andrew Divoff, Robert Englund, Wendy Benson-Landes, Jenny O'HaraHorror | 100% |
Supernatural | 16% |
Fantasy | 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)
BDInfo
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of the
Wishmaster Collection.
What would your three wishes be? It’s a time honored game played by a lot of kids, and maybe even some nostalgic adults: pretend you
were someone like Aladdin who discovered a genie in a bottle (since that’s where genies supposedly are invariably found), freed it from its confines
and then were granted that magic trifecta of desires. Of course any kid worth their salt makes it clear that their third wish is for three more (or
infinitely more) wishes, unless the rules have already been proscribed denying that ability. But at least those first two wishes can be fun to
contemplate, for those fond of indulging in such episodes of pretend. You might not want to get to that venerable third wish should you
find
yourself in an environment like that depicted in the Wishmaster series, since part of this film’s conceit is that the djinn (an Arabic term
relating to a class of supernatural beings, one of whom is called a djinni, or as it became Anglicized, genie) are basically just waiting to escape
their
purgatorial (or in fact hellish) universe to invade ours, and that some poor hapless mortal getting to that third wish is the mechanism by which
that
event can happen. That’s just one way the Wishmaster franchise skews traditional elements of “genie in the bottle” stories, with another
one being that very bottle element: in this formulation, the djinn is imprisoned in a jewel, one that (of course) repeatedly falls into the hands of
either unwitting innocents or very witting bad guys, all of whom (again of course) unleash the superpowered being into the human realm,
with expected calamitous consequences. The first Wishmaster is fun if hokey, augmented by some nice visual effects work, but this is one
franchise that definitely experiences the law of diminishing returns as it goes on.
Wishmaster is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films' Vestron Video imprint, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. All four of the films in the Wishmaster Collection are within "shouting distance" of each other, quality wise, but I'm grading this film and the first sequel at 3.5, and the last two at 4.0 to indicate some subtle but noticeable differences between these transfers. The first two films exhibit some fairly bad wobble during the credits, a tendency which calms down when the actual film begins. Wishmaster's palette is represented quite winningly here, though some of the "Djinn territory" material is bathed in a deep red that debilitates fine detail levels (see screenshots 14 and 15). In normal lighting, and especially in the brightly lit outdoor sequences, fine detail is very good to excellent. While grain resolves naturally most of the time, it clumps unappealingly occasionally, especially in some of the darker sequences and some of the opticals.
For members who may have gotten into spats when submitting update requests which are rejected and who argue "hey, it's what the packaging says",
guess what: packaging is often incorrect, which is why we reviewers and mods typically do reject such submissions. Case in point:
Wishmaster's packaging proclaims a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, when in fact it only features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix (the series is
rather inconsistent in this regard, ping ponging back and forth between 2.0 and 5.1 offerings). Our forum has had some vigorous complaints about
this,
since evidently previous home video releases of Wishmaster did feature a surround track. I frankly never owned Wishmaster in its
previous incarnations, and so can't comment on what "might have been", and instead can only state that the stereo track here offers excellent fidelity
and clarity. The film's fun sound effects have good force if not much spatial presence, and both score and dialogue are also rendered cleanly and
clearly
with good prioritization.
Update: Lionsgate instituted a replacement program for those wanting a 5.1 mix. Details are in the Forum thread devoted to this release.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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1999
Wishmaster 4
2002
Collector's Series
1987
Collector's Edition | Theatrical Cut 4K + BD / Director's Cut BD
1990
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1990
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2014
1986
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2019
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1983
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