Liam Neeson stars as Peyton Westlake, a scientist working on synthetic skin for burn victims. He's made some promising advances, although all the skin melts 99 minutes after being exposed to light. He's engaged to Julie Hastings (Frances McDormand), who works for industrialist Louis Strack (Colin Friels). Julie discovers a document proving that Strack has been bribing officials to get approvals for his projects. Strack sends a gang of his thugs, led by Robert Durant (Larry Drake), to reclaim the document from Peyton's lab, where Julie left it. Unfortunately, Peyton happens to be in at the time, and Durant has him beaten, burned, and thrown into a vat of chemicals before setting him on fire. When he arrives at the hospital, the doctors sever the pain centers of his brain so he doesn't die from the third degree burns covering his body. This procedure also blocks his adrenaline regulators, so he becomes super strong, but he's prone to terrible rage. Escaping the hospital, he shacks up in a condemned chemical plant and continues work on his synthetic skin to cover his horribly scarred face. Eventually he uses his invention to mimic the criminals in an attempt to take them down, while at the same time trying to win Julie back.

Darkman has some interesting elements to it. The whole "synthetic skin" angle has the potential for some cool identity mix-ups, and his strength and inability to feel pain are a pretty good start for any super hero. And Liam Neeson is a great actor in pretty much any role, as is Frances McDormand. But the fact is that Darkman does not make good use of that potential. The first problem is with the script. With five listed screenwriters, this is the classic case of too many cooks ruining the soup. There's a whole lot going on throughout the movie, but none of it is adequately explored. The scenes where Peyton impersonates the thugs generally have him looking uncomfortably at his watch.

And the villains themselves are just awful. Strack, aside from having some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard, is also played by one of the hammiest, most annoying actors I have ever seen. Larry Drake is neither threatening nor charismatic as Durant. The biggest character trait Durant has is that he's gay and likes a character played by Ted Raimi. The best antagonists are the ones you love to hate. Here, we just hate to have them on the screen. The generic underlings have more personality than Durant.

By far the worst part of the entire film is Danny Elfman's score. It rips off so much of his work from Batman (released just one year before, mind you) that if he tried to sue himself for plagiarism, the plea would be "no contest." And unlike in the 1989 Tim Burton breakthrough, Elfman's score here is woefully misused. Right at the beginning there's a scene where Peyton is entering photos into a computer, and the score is at a crescendo like it would be at the movie's climax. I love much of Elfman's work, but this is just derivative.

The best moments are the montages of Peyton's anger. Raimi has always had a distinctive visual style, and it's most apparent and enjoyable when Darkman sees something that sends him in to an uncontrollable adrenaline rage. Other fun moments are when he's stalking Durant and his goons in the chemical factory. The rest is marred by poor special effects and a lack of caring on the audience's part.

Darkman is less than Raimi's best, but Neeson carries it admirably and the best moments make it worth seeing once every ten years or so.

The HD DVD:

The Image:
Universal presents Darkman in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with a 1080p VC-1 encoded transfer. To be honest, I was absolutely shocked at how great Darkman looked in HD. I expected it to have the really soft 80's cinematography that bled into many early 90's films, but the film looked very crisp, with realistic flesh tones and good color reproduction. This transfer has an excellent sense of depth. There is dirt visible on the print, and the high quality of the image makes the poor composites incredibly glaring, but if you're a Darkman fan, you'll have to watch this disc.

The Audio:
Universal has finally re-embraced lossless audio and Darkman sports a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix in addition to the standard Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track. The results aren't particularly impressive, mostly due to the low production values of the film. Raimi has been known to do a lot with a little, but that applies more to the visuals than the sound. There's not much here that would really make it worth the title of a surround mix, as almost everything is confined to the front end. The score gets some rear and bass action, but the action scenes sound more hollow than an old 40's western. Pretty disappointing.

The Supplements:
Absolutely nothing. Considering that Raimi's Evil Dead commentaries are some of the most beloved in all of home video extras, it's sad that we couldn't get at least him and Ted Raimi chatting over this one.

The Conclusion:
Darkman used to be some light fun, but it has not held up well over time, especially in comparison to Sam Raimi's work in Spider-Man. Still, it could be good for someone on a nostalgia kick. Anyone who wants to see the movie should see this HD DVD, as the image is of very high quality. It's a shame the same could not be said for the disc's sound or extras. Rent It.

Daniel Hirshleifer is the High Definition Editor for DVD Talk.