Triangle
(2009/First Look DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C- Feature: C+
Australia had a cinema that used to offer
unique genre films, but between Hollywood
producing Hollywood product there and other
outside production company investing making plainer work, they are losing their
edge at a time it could be a new boom. A
few years ago, I suffered through Christopher Smith’s boring Severance (2006, reviewed elsewhere on
this site), but his new release Triangle
(2009) is not as bad, yet cannot pull past the corner it paints itself in.
A group
of friends set sail for a fun trip, but for Jess (Melissa George), something is
very wrong and their yacht tanks when hitting the Bermuda Triangle, then a
mysterious larger ship shows up that may be haunted and offers nothing but
death and the living dead. Many bad such
films have been made since the 1980s, but this is one of the only ones that has
moments that work, though a tired child-in-jeopardy subplot not only ruins the
flow, but seems like desperate filler.
However,
the larger ship used has some character, even if it does not totally become a
character here and genre fans will want to give it a look. Other can skip it.
The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is soft and has motion blur, in part because it was not
shot on film but uses the Panavision Genesis High Definition cameras used on Superman Returns. Too bad the technology has not advanced or
dated well in most applications. I give
Director of Photography Robert Humphreys credit for pushing it to the limit to
make this exciting, but I wished it were filmed. Maybe the Blu-ray looks better. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has limited
dialogue recording, made to sound worse when the music with better fidelity is
added. Surrounds can be engaging at
times. The only extra is cast/crew
interviews and that is very short.
- Nicholas Sheffo
