This movie seeks to scare you psychologically rather than make you cringe in fear and disgust.
TThe idea of exploring the afterlife in film may not be new but "Flatliners" puts a fresh twist to the story, adding a surprising good morality tale of sin and redemption that accords this film plenty of mileage even after more than a decade and a half since its release.
Video:
"Flatliners" is presented on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded at a maximum resolution of 1080p in the MPEG-2 format. As expected, while it is most certainly a big upgrade from its standard definition DVD version, there are still a couple of nagging issues like slight grain and softness. However, these issues may solely be attributed to the "look" of films from that era and not necessarily because of any degradation of the source print or any transfer issues. For a 17-year old film, the high-definition images you see here is about the best one can hope to obtain. Coupled with better than average color reproduction and mostly solid black levels is a nice sense of depth that makes watching this high-def version a pleasure.
Audio:
Typical of Sony´s usual Blu-ray offering, the showcase audio track on this disc is the English Uncompressed PCM 5.1 track that delivers a better than average aural experience at a bit-rate of 46kHz/4.8Mbps. While showing its age, the soundtrack has held up pretty well with some well-defined surround effects and delivering the show´s 80´s synthesizer-heavy music with some punch. The dialogue is also mostly clear without any distortion. The LFE channel does sound a little thin in parts but overall, it still manages to provide a well-rounded aural experience. The other audio options on this disc include English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 running at a much lower bit rate of 640kbps.
I guess to make up for the lack of special features (see below) on this Blu-ray disc, Sony has decided to pack it with a large number of subtitle options instead. Twenty-two of them to be precise. Yes, you heard right, twenty-two, ranging from Arabic, Czech and Greek to Icelandic, Polish and Turkish. This has got to be the most number of subtitle options I´ve seen offered on any standard or high definition disc.
Extras:
It is a giant surprise to me that this Blu-ray release does not include any extras, not even an easy offering like the film´s theatrical trailer or an audio commentary. This is basically in line with the film´s DVD release that was also bare bones.
Film Value:
While its premise of sin and redemption may seem simple and straightforward, "Flatliners" takes the story to another level by adding a supernatural element and also some depth to its characters´ development, which greatly enhances the storytelling aspect. When you also take into account the star caliber cast assembled for this film, it is therefore a no-brainer that I can still heartily recommend this film even though seventeen years have passed since it was first released.
Video:
"Flatliners" is presented on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded at a maximum resolution of 1080p in the MPEG-2 format. As expected, while it is most certainly a big upgrade from its standard definition DVD version, there are still a couple of nagging issues like slight grain and softness. However, these issues may solely be attributed to the "look" of films from that era and not necessarily because of any degradation of the source print or any transfer issues. For a 17-year old film, the high-definition images you see here is about the best one can hope to obtain. Coupled with better than average color reproduction and mostly solid black levels is a nice sense of depth that makes watching this high-def version a pleasure.
Audio:
Typical of Sony´s usual Blu-ray offering, the showcase audio track on this disc is the English Uncompressed PCM 5.1 track that delivers a better than average aural experience at a bit-rate of 46kHz/4.8Mbps. While showing its age, the soundtrack has held up pretty well with some well-defined surround effects and delivering the show´s 80´s synthesizer-heavy music with some punch. The dialogue is also mostly clear without any distortion. The LFE channel does sound a little thin in parts but overall, it still manages to provide a well-rounded aural experience. The other audio options on this disc include English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 running at a much lower bit rate of 640kbps.
I guess to make up for the lack of special features (see below) on this Blu-ray disc, Sony has decided to pack it with a large number of subtitle options instead. Twenty-two of them to be precise. Yes, you heard right, twenty-two, ranging from Arabic, Czech and Greek to Icelandic, Polish and Turkish. This has got to be the most number of subtitle options I´ve seen offered on any standard or high definition disc.
Extras:
It is a giant surprise to me that this Blu-ray release does not include any extras, not even an easy offering like the film´s theatrical trailer or an audio commentary. This is basically in line with the film´s DVD release that was also bare bones.
Film Value:
While its premise of sin and redemption may seem simple and straightforward, "Flatliners" takes the story to another level by adding a supernatural element and also some depth to its characters´ development, which greatly enhances the storytelling aspect. When you also take into account the star caliber cast assembled for this film, it is therefore a no-brainer that I can still heartily recommend this film even though seventeen years have passed since it was first released.
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[release]21170[/release]