Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Damian Hale, an extremely wealthy and self-centered businessman (is there any other kind in the movies?), is in his late sixties and dying of cancer. But he’s found an escape in a secretive company that has developed a way to transfer the contents of someone’s brain into a younger, healthy human body. They call the process shedding. It succeeds on Damian, but with complications he didn’t anticipate.

This idea isn’t exactly new to science fiction, but the plot here took me on a ride that most such films do not, with twists and turns I didn’t anticipate. The critics savaged this movie, but for me it proved to be a hidden gem—a little slow at first but intriguing throughout as Damian comes to terms with his new situation and is sucked deeper into it.

Universal has been doing some exquisite work lately with its Blu-ray transfers, and this one is no exception. The picture is superb throughout, if sometimes a little dark. Once I sorted that out (by backing off by a step on the gamma setting of the Vizio RS65-B2 UHD set I used for the review), I found nothing but plusses here. The film’s color is mostly reserved; but while there’s little in the way of eye-candy, there are occasional video treats from style-conscious director Tarsem Singh: the older Damian’s Manhattan penthouse, for example, with its Vegas-lux gold leaf everywhere, or the graffiti behind two of the characters as they argue at a gas stop. There’s also the unique starkness of the shedding facility featured in a few important scenes. And while this isn’t an action-filled film, it does have some standout sequences that include one of the most original car chase scenes I’ve experienced recently.

The audio is solid but not flashy. It serves those action scenes well and has a good if not particularly memorable music score. But where it stands out is in its subtle and realistic creation of the story’s varied acoustic environments. You won’t add this film to your collection for demo-quality audio thrills, but its use of sound will keep you engaged.

The extras here include some short but interesting making-of featurettes (including the filming of that car chase) plus a full-length commentary track by Singh. Commentary tracks have been thin on the ground recently, but since they’re one of the features that can keep film buffs interested in having the Blu-ray on their shelf rather than simply downloading or streaming the movie, this is a welcome addition.

Blu-Ray
Studio: Universal, 2015
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio Format: DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1
Length: 117 mins.
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Tarsem Singh
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Kingsley, Natalie Martinez