Horatio
Hornblower – Collector’s Edition
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B+
Since we last looked at the series Horatio Hornblower, much
more has happened to its star, the fine actor Ioan Gruffudd, has slowly become
more recognizable. He almost became
James Bond, but the producers settled with Daniel Craig, yet is more recognized
(at least until Casino Royale comes out) for now playing Reed Richards in
the huge hit feature film version of The Fantastic Four (2005)
that will definitely have a sequel. He
was so good as the man dubbed “Mr. Fantastic” and has always done fine
work. With Titanic (1997) just
reissued on DVD (also reviewed in its 3 DVD set on this site) available,
A&E has decided to reissue their two Horatio Hornblower sets in
one Collector’s Edition.
Now, there may be people out
there who like either the earlier or later telefilms better. That’s fine, you can still get those
separate sets (also reviewed on this site in one review), but this collection
has the added bonus of putting the discs in those terrific space-saving slender
cases. The eight telefilms are:
1)
The Duel
2)
The Fire
Ships
3)
The
Duchess and the Devil
4)
The
Wrong War
5)
The
Mutiny
6)
Retribution
7)
Loyalty
8)
Duty
My fellow critic did not want to go into summarizing them
originally and I understand why, because that would ruin them. Like the Sean Bean Sharpe series
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), has its lead in adventure after adventure
that is semi-historical. I think this
show fares better and takes itself much more seriously, and does not date as
badly as a result. Oddly, such telefilm
adventure cycles are no happening in American TV for whatever reason, though
the old mystery series from the early 1970s (like Columbo or McCloud)
were full-length telefilms that went on for many seasons. After a few very successful telefilms around
the same time, Night Stalker and The Six Million Dollar Man
became hour-long TV shows, but that is still not the same as this.
At this point, the title character is just getting to know
his way around the ship and that is part of the fun. Gruffudd is always convincing and you can see even then how much
the camera likes him and how much start quality he really possesses. As a member of the British Royal Navy, he is
in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, so there is little time for rest or
relaxation and it is to the series’ credit that it was able to continually
recreate the period so nicely and effectively, as well as more realistically
than many feature films set in the same period or venue that this critic has
been tortured by but shall remained nameless.
This runs 13 hours, 20 minutes and if you start watching and get into
it, you’ll want to watch the whole thing, even if it takes a while.
The 1.33 X 1 transfer is not bad in the early telefilms
and has moments that make it look more like video than it should, whether it is
the actual use of older video, the video editor or issues with PAL to NTSC
conversion. The later anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1/16 X 9 shows on discs seven and eight are better, a switch
that happened when A&E became co-producer.
Fortunately, this change or the troubles with the earlier transfers are
not too obnoxious and hazy digititis in similar such foreign TV to U.S. DVD
releases do not surface here. The show
looks a bit better later on, but marginally so. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has very limited surround
information if that, but plays just fine otherwise until the latter telefilms
(namely 7 & 8 again) where some surrounds are evident.
The previous extras from the two sets are back and then
some, all of which are really good, including a commentary track for the Loyalty and Duty episodes with director Andrew Grieve, a stills section,
cast/crew text biographies, author C.S. Forester text biography, more on him in
The Duel, 3-D Interactive Naval
Cannon, The Fire Ships Nautical Terms/Definitions text, and three
featurettes: England’s Naval Ships, Sail
2000: Aboard The Eagle and a
Making Of program called The
Duchess. There is also a new
interview with Gruffudd about hoe he got the show and would like to revisit the
character, as he gets older to play him older.
Hopefully as he becomes a bigger and bigger star, he’ll want to do that.
- Nicholas Sheffo
