The Ruins – Unrated (2008/DreamWorks Blu-ray
+ DVD-Video)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B+/B- Extras: D Film: D
One of
the better actresses to hit Hollywood in the past 10 years is Jena Malone, who
has added quite a number of good films to her resume and the hits keep coming,
but this is not one of them. The Ruins (2008) is one of the more
disappointing films to be released over the past year and sadly takes a few
talented actors and actresses with it, including director Carter Smith.
The plot
is super-thin, but try to bear with me for a minute…
A group
of friends are on a trip to Mexico when their vacation takes a horrible turn
for the worst when they go on a remote archaeological dig and overturn some
evil amidst the ‘ruins’. Uh oh.
Like so many
horrible films before it, this film never seems to deliver once it gets going
and for the first 45-minutes you are waiting for the ‘thing’ to appear and then
once it does, you are waiting for the film to be over. Like those films this one will soon fall into
the unmemorable bin regardless of what it’s rated or unrated. Probably somewhere close to The Descent would be our best guess.
As if the
film wasn’t plagued enough, the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is
not that great with immediate detail and depth issues, while the anamorphically
enhanced version on the DVD is worse and doesn’t help this either as it is even
more problematic. First there is a huge
issue with the video black being far too soft and lacks depth and
character. Hopefully a Blu-ray edition
can save this problem, but the standard definition DVD loses out. The color palette is never fully realized
either with colors that seem smudgy and lack detail making this film look like
it was shot on a Sony HandyCam. Darius
Khondji (Se7en, The Interpreter) could not even save this, even shooting in 35mm
film with real Anamorphic Panavision!
The Dolby
True HD 5.1 mix is a bit compressed and loaded with desperate trickery in the
soundmix, while the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the DVD is worse and neither can
save this film, sounds even more highly compressed and lacks all the detail and
fidelity that you would think DTS could bring out if we did not have the TrueHD
to prove how problematic the soundmaster is.
Extras
include a trailer, deleted scenes, three featurettes and lame audio commentary
by Smith and editor Jeff Betancourt, the latter of whom fared much better on
the far superior Exorcism Of Emily Rose.
Looks
like The Ruins are ruined!
- Nate Goss & Nicholas Sheffo
