The Dark Knight Rises Blu-ray

Originally written for F*** Magazine, Singapore

Read on Fwooshflix

The Dark Knight Rises was pretty much the movie event of the year, and, yes, now that people have seen it, it has its detractors and those who say it didn’t quite live up to the hype. However, it’s hard to deny just how big an achievement the film is, a blockbuster of truly gargantuan proportions and a grand send-off for the Dark Knight trilogy no matter how you slice it. The release of the film on home video can definitely be considered something of an event, and while there’s no better way to soak in a film of such proportions than on the big screen, reliving the big moments in the comfort of your home, with Bane’s gruff, muffled lilt coming over your sound system (and subtitles to help you out), is a very close second.

This reviewer has written about the film itself in an earlier piece, and loved it to bits. Seeing it again at home, his regard for it hasn’t slipped at all. Sure, it’s not quite as perfect as previously thought, but it’s still a darned good piece of filmmaking, and definitely the finale Christopher Nolan’s vision of Batman deserves. The sound and picture is, as expected, astounding. Most of the film was shot in the IMAX format for maximum impact, and the transfer is pretty much flawless. The aspect ratio changes slightly between scenes shot in IMAX and shot on regular 35 mm, but it’s not too distracting.

This is one of those films where it feels like an honor to watch it in your own home. The opening hijacking/infiltration sets the stage for an explosive ride, with the panoramic vistas, the dizzying heights, and the thumping Hans Zimmer score with the now-famous “deshi basara”  chant roaring in the background. In addition to its dense and engrossing plot, this is definitely very much a “sight-and-sound” movie. Every little detail is presented to be relished in all its glory, from punches landing to gunshots being fired,  the whirr of the Bat’s rotors and turbines, the falling water in both Batman and Bane’s lair, all of Wally Pfister’s remarkable cinematography and Richard King’s immersive sound, really…almost brings a tear to  one’s eye, it’s all so beautiful. It’s also easy to appreciate that Nolan gives the dialogue scenes as much weight as the action sequences, and it is very effective.

Christopher Nolan, youda man.

The 2-disc special edition comes with over three hours of special features, which should provide good feasting for voracious Batman fans. There’s a great retrospective documentary about the Batmobile, featuring all five of its cinematic incarnations in the same room together for the first time, like supermodels for a fashion photo shoot. Batman’s car has always been almost as iconic as the Caped Crusader himself, and there’s something about the Batmobile that brings out the five year-old boy in everyone. The documentary includes interviews with various designers, technicians, and artists responsible in bringing the Batmobile to life on the big screen in its various forms, from the retro cool of the Lincoln Futura-based model in the ’66 movie and TV show to the tough, aggressive matte-black Tumbler Batmobile in the Dark Knight trilogy. Various fans who turned up at San Diego Comic Con in costume are also featured in short interview segments. This is not merely a geeky look at the technical specifications and gadgets of Batman’s ride, though, and this documentary is remarkable in its examination of the iconography and symbolism of the Batmobile, how it’s akin to the noble steed a knight from Arthurian mythology would ride into battle, and the special place it occupies in the hearts of its creators and Batman fans everywhere alike.  Towards the end of the featurette, there’s a clip showing the Tumbler Batmobile being taken up to the Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and it was quite a surprise for this reviewer to find himself actually tearing up during a celebration of the one of the toughest, coolest, most manly cars in pop culture history. And, of course, there’s a thrill to see all five cars, single file, roaring down the freeway.

As for features pertaining specifically to this film, there is a trailer archive and a print campaign art gallery, but the motherload is definitely “Ending the Knight,” a collection of 17 behind-the-scenes featurettes coming in at over two hours in length altogether, and split into three sections: “Production,” “Characters,” and “Reflections.”  The Dark Knight Rises is crammed full of moments that will make almost anyone wonder, “Now, how did they do that?” and these featurettes attempt to answer those questions.

Almost all of the fun stuff is covered under “Production.” “The Prologue: High-Altitude Hijacking” details the filming of the exhilarating and suspenseful mid-air heist that opens the film. This first behind-the-scenes look establishes that, unlike a growing number of filmmakers, Christopher Nolan is particular about getting as much in-camera as possible, and not relying overly on computer-generated visual effects work, resulting in sequences which are spectacular and awe-inspiring in their realism. There’s stuntmen hanging out of planes for real, sections of planes dropped from helicopters, a full-sized plane on a full-motion gimbal platform, stuntmen crawling along the sides of the fuselage of planes in mid-air… From the get-go, you can see that stunt coordinator Tom Struthers, special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, and the rest of Nolan’s team had their work cut out for them.

“Return to the Batcave” and “Beneath Gotham” give viewers a look at the construction of the massive sets for the Batcave and Bane’s lair in the city sewer system, respectively, and “The Pit” grants us a look at the other major underground set, the prison from which Bruce Wayne must escape. “Armoury Accepted” shows how a combination of miniature model work, green screen photography, and dropping a full-sized Tumbler Batmobile right into the set came together to form the illusion of Bane blasting away the ceiling of his lair to drop Batman’s goodies stored upstairs right into his lap. “The Bat” highlights Batman’s sweet new ride, a flying vehicle that’s part-helicopter, part-tank, and part-lobster. A full-scale version of the vehicle was constructed, and since it couldn’t actually fly, a number of rigs were constructed to make it appear like it could, involving such contraptions as a setup of two cranes with wires strung between them, heavy-duty helicopters from which the Bat was suspended, and a ground vehicle on which The Bat “rode” that was painted out using visual effects work afterwards.

“Gameday Destruction” answers the question of how exactly the filmmakers blew up a football stadium to form one of the movie’s central action setpieces. Co-writer Jonathan Nolan reveals how he wanted to have Bane begin his takeover of Gotham City at a football stadium because it’s a place of “collective vulnerability,” and would have great psychological impact. Over 11,000 eager extras showed up at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh to shoot the scene where Bane takes the arena under siege, and the featurette clues viewers in to just how much work went into that one sequence, with everything from special effects rigging to stunts, to even naming Gotham’s football team (“The Rouges,” after Batman’s comic book rogues gallery) and designing their uniforms. Executive producer Thomas Tull, one of the owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers, enlisted players past and present to cameo in the film as the Gotham Rogues, and the real-life mayor of Pittsburgh Luke Ravenstahl appeared as the kicker of the opposing team, the Rapid City Monuments. “War on Wall Street” is about the other major crowd scene, a massive brawl between scores of policemen and Bane’s thugs, filmed on Wall Street itself — which the production team turned into a giant war zone for a 1,100-strong clash.

For this Batman fanatic, the special features on this Blu-ray release can be summed up as “extensive but not exhaustive.” Sure, there is a wide array of behind-the-scenes material, and it is very educational and entertaining to watch how Christopher Nolan and Co. mounted “Operation TDKR.” However, one can’t help but feel that bits and pieces are missing. For example, the “Characters” section of “Ending the Knight” comprises profiles of Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, and Bane — but none on major new characters John Blake and Miranda Tate or stalwart allies Commissioner Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, and Lucius Fox. The extras are also curiously spoiler-free, so there isn’t a featurette that goes into the finale in detail. There is also an option to sync up the movie with the free downloadable The Dark Knight Rises app, though this reviewer would have also liked to see an in-movie interactive mode with trivia segments and so on accessible while watching the movie itself.

Still, it will be difficult for any Bat-fan to pass this up, and yes, this is a must-have.The Dark Knight Rises is a film that may be exhausting to watch, but exhausting in a good way, like after a morning run. It’s definitely very rewatchable in spite of its hefty running time, though if you’re feeling flush, a limited edition including a very cool-looking broken cowl replica display piece is also available. A trilogy boxset will also be out next year.

MOVIE: 4.5 out of 5 STARS

EXTRAS: 4 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Lucid Dreaming: Inception Blu-Ray review

(Please see earlier entry for the review of the film proper)

 THE BLU-RAY RELEASE

When I walked out of the movie theatre after seeing this film with my family, my brother turned to me excitedly, and said "we HAVE to buy the Blu-Ray when it comes out." I must say I agreed, and now he's been proven correct. The format was the winner in the "optical disc format war", pitting it against the now-defunct "HD DVD" format - never since the days of Betmax vs VHS have home video format wars been this brutal. My Dad says he feels for those who stocked up on a HD DVD collection and are now left with a large pile of very useless discs.

Anyway, the format has been around for three-ish years now, but Blu Ray discs are still significantly more expensive than a normal DVD release. In the case of the Blu-Ray release for Inception, is it worth it?

Simply put, yes.

Watching the film in the comfort of your own home, you can rewind, pause or play the film in slow-motion, and Inception is one of those films where many cinemagoers did want to go back to have a closer look at an earlier scene. But why watch it in Blu-Ray?

As you've gathered from the section above, Inception is a very visual film. Oodles and oodles of artfully-shot, awe-inspiring images come one after another. I'm sure it looks great on a regular DVD as well, but the Blu-Ray format does indeed do the film incredible justice. Every tiny detail in unparalleled quality. There's also the sound. Hans Zimmer's throbbing, ominous score and the sound effects - especially the bit where Ariadne steps on a broken glass, and there's that eerie ringing tone - come to vivid life. Not every film needs to be seen in Blu-Ray. When my Dad bought the Blu-Ray player, one of the free discs they packaged with it was a Blu-Ray release of the comedy "First Sunday". That film doesn't need to be seen in Blu-Ray - Tracy Jordan is scary enough as he is on TV.

But Inception is one film that needs to be seen in Blu-Ray. I'll go as far as to say if someone puts a gun to your head and says you can only choose one film to own on Blu-Ray, choose this one. And no, neither Warner Bros. Pictures, Syncopy, Legendary Pictures, Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio nor Tai Li-Lee (the Japanese kid on the train who helps Cobb with the "kicks") are paying me any money to say all this. I'm just really excited that it looks, sounds and feels brilliant at home - as much as it did in the movie theatre.

And of course, the biggest reason that I get video releases of films to watch at home - aside from being able to watch the film at home and as many times as I want to - are special features. Unfortunately, Inception is slightly thin on the special features, at least when compared to some other Blu-Ray releases which contain tens of hours of bonus material. However, quality does trump quantity this time around. The second disc contains most of the supplementals. There's a 45-minute-long documentary featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and real-life PhD and MD-holding dream experts, who discuss the psychology and the inexact science behind dreaming. I always like it when the audience gets a peek into some real-life context behind a movie, and the documentary is informative, deep, yet fun to watch. Apart from the interviews, "Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious" features fascinating animated and re-enacted sequences that attempt to portray what it looks like when we dream. Very artistic.

This here is hard to top.

You also get a "motion comic" of "The Cobol Job", which is a comic book that acts as a prequel to the film and sets it up very nicely. "The Cobol Job" tells of the circumstances leading up to Cobb, Arthur and Nash performing the extraction on Saito at the beginning of the film, and provides great context - provided you watch the film first, as the film in turn provides context to its prequel. A motion comic is a stylised animated representation of the comic book: you get the speech bubbles, narration and onomatopoeic "sound effects", but also a degree of animation accompanied by Hans Zimmer's music and some sound effects. It's a surreal and novel way to tell a story as the characters don't "speak" audibly. It's supposed to be a comic book come to life, and that's exactly what it is. The art is gorgeous, and there are some pretty good likenesses of Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt drawn into it.

You get the standard collection of trailers, TV spots and promotional art, with intriguing and very exquisite concept art thrown in for good measure. Disc 2 is rounded off with ten tracks taken off the film's soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer. I'm not a big fan of the composer, as his scores are often derivative and repetitive - there indeed are moments of the soundtrack that are recognisable as riffs from other Hans Zimmer soundtracks for other films. However, he does use some very clever tricks in his composition, including adapting parts of "Non, je ne regrette rien" (the Edith Piaf song used for the kicks) into his score. It's fun to listen to the music in such quality, and it does suit the film very well.

The main special feature is back on Disc 1: "Extraction Mode", which is a version of Warner Bros' "Maximum Movie Mode" feature only available on its Blu-Ray discs. It's like an audio commentary, but much cooler: at certain points in the film, a behind-the-scenes clip detailing the making of that particular scene is inserted into the film. This includes astounding and revealing footage of how some of the mind-blowing special/visual effects were done, and interviews with the main creative team (and Leonardo DiCaprio). This is sure to excite any movie buff: an opportunity to enter the mind of the mastermind, so to speak, and hear it straight from Nolan himself. For those who want to go deeper into the story and want some questions answered, watching the movie this way is sure to be a treat. But, just as a magician never gives out his secrets, Nolan attempts to remain deliberately vague on those plot details. At any rate, the "extraction mode", which is exclusive to the Blu-Ray edition, is a really big reason to get this on that format. You can also watch the clips by themselves, without having them pop up during the film.

I don't own it, but there is also a limited edition release packaged slickly in an aluminium briefcase-type case. You get the Blu-Ray, DVD and digital copy versions of the film, as well as four postcards, an in-universe "instruction manual" on how to operate the PASIV device that enables the shared dreaming in the film, and coolest of all, a prop replica of the spinning top totem.

The Blu-Ray release of Inception lets you dream big, dream clear, dream in vivid detail and dream as often as you want to. Now, the dream truly is real.