Icefall
(2025/Decal/Aura Blu-ray)/Red
Planet 4K
(2000/Warner/MVD/Arrow 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B-/X Sound: B/B+ Extras:
D/B Films: C-/C+
Nothing
is more frustrating than a movie with a lead and/or cast you like,
then the film is far from worthy of them, like these actioners...
Stefan
Ruzowitzy's Icefall
(2025, not trying to imitate the Bond film of nearly the same name)
starts with a violent heist of dirty money by another group as dirty
as the one being robbed from, then the loot is put on an airplane to
go to a secret location. However, that plane goes off course and
crash lands into a very snowy and icy locale, which will start a race
to get the goods that will turn the white snow red.
The
underrated Joel Kinnaman (Easy
Money,
Girl
With The Dragon Tattoo)
is a native American game warden who lands up in the middle of all
this, slowly discovering what the more dangerous groups already know,
so you know what follows as the only thing more abundant here than
snow and ice are cliches and predictability. The mostly unknown cast
tries to get into it, with Danny Huston and (in his last feature film
role, the late) Graham Greener also show up, but they can only do so
much. This one starts sloppy and off kilter and never recovers.
I
was hoping for a surprise and not a Johan Falk installment
(Kinnaman's native telefilm series that helped put him on the map in
his home country) but he tries to keep this one going too. We and he
deserves much better and more effective and there is still plenty of
time for a new breakthrough (the Robocop
remake was not it, sadly) and see what he does next. Until then,
this is for only his most hardcore fans.
There
are no extras.
Films
centered on Mars have always been a big swing for audiences and walk
a thin line between hit or miss. We can go back to the golden era of
film with classics like Flight to Mars, Robinson Crusoe on
Mars, and Angry Red Planet or fast forward to the 80s and
90s with the comedy classic Mars Attacks and the
Schwarzenegger hit Total Recall, its so-so remake and in more
recent years hits like The Martian and Ad
Astra. But one of the most forgotten and not well loved
films in the sci-fi sub-genre is Antony Hoffman's Red Planet
(2000,) which has shockingly received a prestigious 4K restoration
from Arrow Video.
While
the special effects haven't aged well, the film has s a strong cast
in Val Kilmer, Carrie Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore, Simon Baker, Benjamin
Bratt, and Terence Stamp. Red Planet didn't do well at the
time financially or critically upon its release in 2000 and was
considered a flop and has since gotten a bit lost in the shuffle of
movie history. That being said, it is nice to see it again on 4K UHD
after all these years and revisit it especially now that many of its
leads (Kilmer, Sizemore, Stamp) have now passed. It's interesting to
see Carrie Anne Moss in this film as well as she had just been on a
huge winning streak with The Matrix and Memento around
the same time.
A
hopeful mission to Mars to colonize and save humanity goes awry when
a giant solar flare interferes with their ship occurs outside the
planet divided up its crew. As they struggle to survive they find
that life on the red planet wasn't as expected.
Special
Features include:
The
Martian Chronicles, a brand new interview with visual effects
supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun
Suit
Up, a brand new interview with helmet and suits designer Steve
Johnson
Angry
Red Planet, a brand new visual retrospective with film critic
Heath Holland
Deleted
scenes
Theatrical
trailer
Reversible
sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt
Griffin
and
an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film
by Mark A. Altman.
Red
Planet isn't the worst sci-fi film of its kind and is
entertaining in retrospect for the chemistry of its cast if nothing
else. Mission to Mars came out around the same time and I
personally enjoyed this one more. Arrow has done a fine job as usual
with the restoration.
Now
for
playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 2.35 X 1, Dolby
Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition
image on Red Planet has
been restored by Arrow Films and is presented in
and an audio track in an original, lossless, English DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) mix. The
original 35mm camera negative was scanned in 4K / 16 bit resolution
at Warner Bros. and looks and sounds far better than previous
releases on more compressed formats. This works against it in scenes
with special effects that now look on the level of what you would see
on a streaming series, but at the time were more cutting edge.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Icefall
is a softer than it should be, even considering any style used for
the icy outdoors, some of which do not ring as authentic. Color is
at least consistent and the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix fares better with
surprising consistency, being the default highlight of the release.
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (4K)
https://letterboxd.com/jhl5films/
