Blu-ray Movie Reviews

"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" is a grand tale of a not-so-ordinary man and the people and places he discovers along the way, the loves he finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.

It is interesting to see how David Fincher has evolved as a filmmaker. His early works were very hip and stylized and pushed the envelope of popular Hollywood cinema for their genres. But he has moved onto far more serious films lately with Zodiac and now this film. Many have compared this one to Forest Gump but I find the film’s themes and execution to be a bit more grounded and seriously toned. At nearly three hours I think the film can be a bit long and not nearly as moving as I had hoped, but you can’t deny the unbelievably rich production and cinematic magic on display. I’m looking forward to seeing what Fincher has in store for us next.

This Blu-ray release is the first of what I really hope begins a trend. Rather than Paramount producing their own Blu-ray release, they’ve left it to the highly capable hands of the folks at The Criterion Collection. Fincher has worked with them before for his lavish laserdisc releases of earlier catalog titles like Se7en, but we haven’t seen a studio do this with Blu-ray yet. If this release is any indication, it is something that I hope is considered going forward, especially with some of Fincher’s previous titles. The included insert tells the viewer exactly what this Blu-ray was sourced from and that it was mastered directly from the digital interpositive in REC 709 at 1080p24. I wish EVERY release gave this type of information since there has been so much speculation on what color space some films are mastered in and the source used. The only thing missing is what gamma was intended and used for mastering. This would provide the end user to dial in his display exactly to the intended settings for proper playback. This Blu-ray is nothing short of phenomenal in picture quality overall with razor sharp detail, incredible depth, and nearly unmatched dimensionality. The majority of the film was shot digitally and the cameras captured some amazing detail. The complete lack of film grain and noise makes for a spit and polish that few transfers can match and reminded me a lot of the spectacular transfer of Zodiac with just a bit more detail this time. A reference quality transfer from Criterion.

The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio despite the back cover indicating a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The soundstage is an engaging mix of score and subtle ambiance and the film only has a few moments of rich dynamic range. It does excel at creating a very convincing soundstage though with a very open spatial quality and very natural tone and balance. The few moments of action include some impressive low end extension and rich surround use but this is a pretty delicate mix overall.

Criterion does a fantastic job with the special features for this release and delivers just about everything you could ask for from a behind the scenes feature. The footage is brought in a feature that is longer than the film itself and dissects everything from the casting to the shooting locations and visual effects. You get a real sense of the style Fincher was going for and how he transformed the actor’s to their various stages of age throughout the film. You also get a feature audio commentary with the director and interviews with the principal actors.

I really hope we see more studios turn over deserving films to Criterion for release. This was a very popular trend with laserdisc and I would be overjoyed to see it continue into the Blu-ray format. I couldn’t imagine a better presentation of this film and I’m quite sure film lovers will be more than pleased with the plethora of production insight the supplements deliver. A must own!