Event Horizon (Blu-ray)

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Before there was Uwe Boll, there was Paul W.S.Anderson. "Mortal Kombat," "Resident Evil," and "AVP" were all based on video games. P.W.S.A. wrote and produced "Resident Evil: Apocalypse," which was also based on video games. "Soldier" is basically a video game in and of itself. I actually have nothing against basing movies on video games. The problem is that movies that are video game adaptations tend to be bad, which gives the genre a bad reputation. Before 2000's "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," P.W.S.A. made the best movie based on a video game--"Mortal Kombat," which had a decent story and well-shot fights.

The other significant entry in P.W.S.A.'s oeuvre is "Event Horizon," which is basically his "art-house" movie. Using a simple story, the film is basically a series of vignettes with characters experiencing terror, melancholy, anxiety, and frustration before dying. Unfortunately, despite the fact that P.W.S.A. seems to be well-versed in the history of disturbing imagery, there's little that is artful in his movie.

In "Event Horizon", a space crew is sent to retrieve the Event Horizon, a huge deep-space vessel that was missing for seven years. The Event Horizon literally opened a portal to Hell and was there for seven years. Now that the Event Horizon is back in our reality, Hell has come to our universe. Apparently, Hell is filled with burning people, people wrapped in wires, and people covered in blood and maggots.

Usually, in horror movies, dumb people split up and get killed off one by one. "Event Horizon" offers a twist. The characters are rational military and scientific types. Therefore, they split up because they're smart. This doesn't change things much, though--everyone still sees bloody, gruesome sights, and everyone still dies bloody, gruesome deaths.

"Event Horizon" is little more than an exercise in style and gore. The dialogue is comprised of characters stating the obvious and yelling profanity at each other. There's also an inappropriate crowd-pleasing moment. One of the characters is blown into space by an explosion. In order to get back to the Event Horizon, he blows his air tanks and screams, "Here I come, motherfuckers!" I'm sure that this elicits cheers, laughs, and applause from viewers. Unfortunately, when you purge your oxygen in space, you basically commit suicide. Therefore, people are cheering, laughing at, and applauding suicide when they enjoy this crowd-pleasing gesture.

"Event Horizon" is nothing more than a splatter fest. On the other hand, it's not a wipeout like "Soldier," "Resident Evil," and "AVP: Alien Vs. Predator." I guess when you start your career with "Mortal Kombat," you have nowhere to go but downhill.

Eddie's film rating: 4/10

Video:
Paramount transferred the movie to a dual-layer BD50 Blu-ray disc using an MPEG-4/AVC codec, and the results are as good as we could hope for. The picture looks beautifully detailed, sharp, and precise. Although the movie is dark in the manner of an "Alien" film, there are reasonably good colors throughout. Hues are bright and rich, without being overbearing, and skin tones are particularly natural. Black levels are decent if not inky, and a light film grain provides more texture than some viewers may like.

Audio:
For English, we get the choice of either regular, lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 or lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio tracks. The TrueHD is considerably the smoother of the two, but it also tends to make spoken lines a bit too soft and rounded. When bass thunders and one feels the dynamic impact, it can also obscure some of the dialogue. The transient response is quick, the clarity of aural effects is outstanding, and the surround activity, while somewhat limited, sounds impressive.

Extras:
This high-definition Blu-ray disc contains everything that Paramount previously included in their standard-definition two-disc DVD set. Things begin with the mandatory audio commentary, this one by director Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt. They're amiable enough and reveal a good deal of detail about the filmmaking, but they also tend to praise the film overmuch so it's kind of a self-serving affair.

Next, there's "The Making of Event Horizon," five making-of featurettes in standard def that total about 103 minutes. The titles of each section are pretty self-explanatory if you've already watched the movie, and they contain a remarkable amount of talk: "Into the Jaws of Darkness," "The Body of the Beast," "Liberate Tutume Ex Infernis," "The Scale to Hell," and "The Womb of Fear." After those items are four more featurettes, again in standard def, collected under the umbrella title "The Point of No Return: The Filming of Event Horizon." They total about eight minutes and include "The Revolving Corridor," "The Crew Gathers," "Shooting Wire Work," and "The Dark Inside." After that we find three deleted or expanded scenes with optional director commentary, followed by "The Unseen Event Horizon," which includes storyboards and conceptual art, again with director commentary.

The extras finish up with a full-screen video trailer in standard def; a widescreen theatrical trailer in high def; seventeen scene selections, with bookmarks; pop-up menus; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
It's really disheartening to see how quickly this movie degenerates from an intriguing premise into an absurd, blood-splashed gore-a-thon. It's even more disheartening to see three fine actors like Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, and Kathleen Quinlan participate in it. I guess either the money was right or they didn't read the second half of the script. "Event Horizon" at least looks good, especially in high def, but that can't make up for its being too silly for this reviewer to hurry back for any repeat viewings.

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