Vertical Limit (Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B Extras: C- Film: D
Martin Campbell
is an uneven filmmaker. He makes two of
the best Bond films of recent years, two of the oddest Zorro films ever made
and all kinds of other odd projects. His
2000 actioner Vertical Limit is one
of his poorest films, as has just about any film in the snow or ice. Cliffhanger
was one of the few that were watchable, but even it is a mixed film. However, Limit
has become a sound and picture demo if nothing else and that is why Sony issued
the film in their celebrated Superbit series.
Though not all those releases were good, the one for Limit was one of the best as this early
review for the site shows:
Superbit DVD Edition
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/75/Vertical+Limit+(Superbit)
As overboard
as my fellow critic went in rating its performance, the DTS was very good and
picture was good for DVD. Now, as an
early Blu-ray and with Campbell’s Casino
Royale a huge watershed hit, it was inevitable before that film was even
greenlighted that this would be an early logical choice for the format.
The story
about a race to save friends trapped in grave danger at the top of Pakistan’s
Karakoram Range (stranger since 9/11 happened) has few twists and no solid
story or back story in the lame Robert Hayes/Terry King screenplay. So how good a demo is it now?
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image looks pretty good for its age, though
this looks like the HD master used for the Superbit edition, though clearer and
in better shape than other such HD sources for other Blu-rays earlier of that
series. Part of this is thanks to the
skilled cinematographer David Tattersall, B.S.C., who was able to deliver great
shots to go with the mostly (and thankfully) pre-digital visual effects. That is one of its few saving graces.
The PCM
16-bit/48kHz 5.1 mix is not bad, but sometimes not as good as many feel it
is. Though PCM is often referred to as
uncompressed, it is actually 2-to-1 compression except in certain formats (MLP,
Dolby TrueHD) and has been around since the early 1980s in its roughest
forms. DTS like the Superbit DVD is
always 20-bit or 24-bit and has 3-to-1 compression expect in the case of DTS HD
Master Audio lossless at its 192kHz/24-bit level. That makes for an interesting case here since
this film was issued in Sony’s SDDS 8-channel format, an occasional Sony
Dynamic Digital Sound 7.1 theatrical release.
That puts
two extra speakers back behind the screen from the old 70mm days with its
traveling dialogue and the like. That
might make a 5.1 mix down like this a bit awkward, but anything that might
sound like it is favoring the front is not from the original design. The fold-down just makes it sound this way,
which is much worse on the DVDs of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, also a 7.1 film.
Though
this PCM is just fine, the DTS had its advantages and eventually, there will be
some films like this that get a 7.1 Blu-ray reissue when the playback hardware
catches up with the software. As it
stands, this is not bad for its age and James Newton Howard’s score is passable
at best.
Extras
include feature length audio commentary by Campbell and Producer Lloyd Phillips,
the HBO making-of special “Surviving The
Limit” and six other featurettes.
That was not on the Superbit, so now, you can enjoy the best of both
worlds on one disc.
- Nicholas Sheffo
