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Dante's Peak: Collector's Edition
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Film:
"Dante's Peak" was one of the two volcano movies that came out during 1997, starting off the "Everything In Twos" syndrome of last year(asteroids, bugs, etc). Compared to it's "cousin", "Volcano", "Dante's Peak" feels far more realistic. Although it does fall back into comfortable action/disaster film formula, at least it's well done technically.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Harry Dalton, a volcanologist who's getting over the loss of his wife in a tragic volcano-related accident a few years before. He's called back to action to investigate "Dante's Peak", the volcano that lies above the town of the title. He's joined by a rag-tag team that, honestly, feels like a real volcanology team. Brosnan, although he doesn't seem realistic, has the role down pat. He walks the walk, he talks the talk in a good performance.
As I said, the film is technically well done. Roger Donaldson is a director that can work with somewhat subpar material and at least make it entertaining("Species"). Here, he has the added feature of formerly being an aspiring volcanologist himself. Although everything tries to be accurate, nevertheless there are quite a few scenes(one involving a dog jumping into a car) that are pure Hollywood and actually take the audience out of the movie.
The film also takes quite a long time to get going, going through seemingly every little character in the town, trying to give the audience some characters to sympathize with or care about. It takes us around the town again and again; finally, the film gets into gear during its last act, where the obvious happens(I'll let you, the reader, figure it out.)
Overall, "Dante's Peak", like the rest of the disaster films that have been coming out lately, satisfies as basic entertainment. As it falls, "Dante's" is a little bit better than average, although I doubt that I'll be watching this film repeatedly.
The Disc:
Overall: Now here's where it shines. "Dante's Peak" still holds up as one of the best collector's editions out there.
Extras:
-Commentary by director Donaldson and the producer. It's a relaxed, informative commentary that I include as one of the better commentaries out there.
-The trailer.
-The 60 minute documentary, "Getting Close To The Show". This is an outstanding documentary that takes you through every step of the process with great footage and interviews with the cast/crew. Still the best DVD Documentary I've seen.
-FX Reel. The disc shows how the FX plates were put together to make the final shot. Then the final shot is shown.
-Storyboards for a few scenes. The disc takes you through board by board, then the actual scene is played.
-Production design sketches.
-Every last poster design that was used or even considered. Super cool stuff.
-Giant picture gallery.
-Frame by frame of photos taken of the church tower falling.
-The ENTIRE SCREENPLAY!
Picture: Of outstanding quality. The picture on this disc actually looks a bit better than when I saw the film in a so-called "state-of-the-art" theater locally in 1997. The brightness and contrast are a little better on this disc, allowing for better detail and sharpness. Overall, it seems a bit brighter and a lot sharper than when I saw it in theaters. Color saturation is excellent, and the disc has some great colors on display. The colors of the town in the early scenes, the grey of the volcanic ash, the orange-reds of the lava, the greens of the forests; it's all rendered excitingly well on this disc, which is letterboxed at 2.35:1 and anamorphically enhanced. It's a rich, detailed looking picture that's exciting to watch. Absolutely no instances of compression artifacts visible, which is pretty good considering there's a few instances of smoke and other such scenes that I would think would be hard to compress. Not for Universal, apparently.
Audio: Crystal clear and thunderous sound envelops the viewer. As you would expect from a film like this, there are plenty of instances that call for great sound FX. Well, your expectations will be met with this disc. An incredibly impacting sound mix delivers, with some great erruption and distruction scenes(great job done on the collapsing buildings); the whole film closes with a wild pyroclastic cloud sequence; if you've never seen a pyroclastic cloud, I won't ruin it, but it's amazing how perfect and accurately done the cloud is done in terms of picture and sound. The scene is a mix of plenty of different FX, and in terms of picture and audio, it's amazing, much like the rest of the disc.
Menu: Not animated, but still nicely done and easy to navigate.
Problems:Must switch between commentary and the film's soundtrack on the menu only.
"Dante's Peak" was one of the two volcano movies that came out during 1997, starting off the "Everything In Twos" syndrome of last year(asteroids, bugs, etc). Compared to it's "cousin", "Volcano", "Dante's Peak" feels far more realistic. Although it does fall back into comfortable action/disaster film formula, at least it's well done technically.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Harry Dalton, a volcanologist who's getting over the loss of his wife in a tragic volcano-related accident a few years before. He's called back to action to investigate "Dante's Peak", the volcano that lies above the town of the title. He's joined by a rag-tag team that, honestly, feels like a real volcanology team. Brosnan, although he doesn't seem realistic, has the role down pat. He walks the walk, he talks the talk in a good performance.
As I said, the film is technically well done. Roger Donaldson is a director that can work with somewhat subpar material and at least make it entertaining("Species"). Here, he has the added feature of formerly being an aspiring volcanologist himself. Although everything tries to be accurate, nevertheless there are quite a few scenes(one involving a dog jumping into a car) that are pure Hollywood and actually take the audience out of the movie.
The film also takes quite a long time to get going, going through seemingly every little character in the town, trying to give the audience some characters to sympathize with or care about. It takes us around the town again and again; finally, the film gets into gear during its last act, where the obvious happens(I'll let you, the reader, figure it out.)
Overall, "Dante's Peak", like the rest of the disaster films that have been coming out lately, satisfies as basic entertainment. As it falls, "Dante's" is a little bit better than average, although I doubt that I'll be watching this film repeatedly.
The Disc:
Overall: Now here's where it shines. "Dante's Peak" still holds up as one of the best collector's editions out there.
Extras:
-Commentary by director Donaldson and the producer. It's a relaxed, informative commentary that I include as one of the better commentaries out there.
-The trailer.
-The 60 minute documentary, "Getting Close To The Show". This is an outstanding documentary that takes you through every step of the process with great footage and interviews with the cast/crew. Still the best DVD Documentary I've seen.
-FX Reel. The disc shows how the FX plates were put together to make the final shot. Then the final shot is shown.
-Storyboards for a few scenes. The disc takes you through board by board, then the actual scene is played.
-Production design sketches.
-Every last poster design that was used or even considered. Super cool stuff.
-Giant picture gallery.
-Frame by frame of photos taken of the church tower falling.
-The ENTIRE SCREENPLAY!
Picture: Of outstanding quality. The picture on this disc actually looks a bit better than when I saw the film in a so-called "state-of-the-art" theater locally in 1997. The brightness and contrast are a little better on this disc, allowing for better detail and sharpness. Overall, it seems a bit brighter and a lot sharper than when I saw it in theaters. Color saturation is excellent, and the disc has some great colors on display. The colors of the town in the early scenes, the grey of the volcanic ash, the orange-reds of the lava, the greens of the forests; it's all rendered excitingly well on this disc, which is letterboxed at 2.35:1 and anamorphically enhanced. It's a rich, detailed looking picture that's exciting to watch. Absolutely no instances of compression artifacts visible, which is pretty good considering there's a few instances of smoke and other such scenes that I would think would be hard to compress. Not for Universal, apparently.
Audio: Crystal clear and thunderous sound envelops the viewer. As you would expect from a film like this, there are plenty of instances that call for great sound FX. Well, your expectations will be met with this disc. An incredibly impacting sound mix delivers, with some great erruption and distruction scenes(great job done on the collapsing buildings); the whole film closes with a wild pyroclastic cloud sequence; if you've never seen a pyroclastic cloud, I won't ruin it, but it's amazing how perfect and accurately done the cloud is done in terms of picture and sound. The scene is a mix of plenty of different FX, and in terms of picture and audio, it's amazing, much like the rest of the disc.
Menu: Not animated, but still nicely done and easy to navigate.
Problems:Must switch between commentary and the film's soundtrack on the menu only.
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