Watching Craig here, you can certainly see why the Bond franchise thought he might be a good choice.
Most of the visual interest comes from those camera angles--and even then, there's nothing so jarring or striking that it draws notice (except for some sped-up filming and one scene in a café). And the most exciting action sequence involves a bit of stunt driving in reverse. For all its attempted energy, the film didn't engage me as much as I thought it would, perhaps because our eyes pass over very little in the way of unfamiliar ground, and there's not nearly enough "Pulp Fiction" style surprises to thrust a needle into our hearts to get them pumping furiously again. Or maybe it's just that it lost me a few too many times. That said, and despite a predictable and disappointing ending, it's still engaging enough for an evening's entertainment, and there are enough good things happening to make this a solid film.
Video:
The picture quality on the standard DVD was quite stunning, mastered in High Definition and presented in 2.40:1 widescreen. I honestly can't see a difference in quality on this Blu-ray, the way I clearly could when I compared the two versions of "Casino Royale." It's a solid picture with good black levels, but you'd have to do a frame-by-frame stop-motion comparison to see the difference.
Audio:
The sound is another story, as is often the case. There's no way that uncompressed PCM 5.1 doesn't top Dolby Digital 5.1. It just fills the room better, and more naturally, with dialogue, ambient sounds, and FX. Alternate options of English and French 5.1 are available, with subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Mantrad), Korean, and Thai. Thank goodness for subtitles. There'll be a few times when you'll want to switch on the titles just to catch the slang-ridden dialogue: things like "gobshite," "toerag," "did his bird," and "let's have a little recce." Other times you'll want the subtitles on because the voices can dip into a level of quietness where it's tough to understand the characters, unless you've got an ear for Britspeak.
Extras:
The commentary by Vaughn and writer Connolly is better than most, useful because it will help you to get a handle on some of the aspects of this film that get lost in translation to a quicker-paced visual medium. There's also a featurette Q/A with Vaughn and Craig onstage at the National Film Theatre in London, September 2004, a low-key affair with audience and interviewer. But the pacing is sub-leisurely, and the lighting is bizarre, with lines of color slashing across the principles' faces. During the interview, as on the commentary, Vaughn talks about his attitude towards Quentin Tarrantino--he loves the director, but is no fan of gratuitous violence, which is why he chose to rein it in. Craig, meanwhile, talks about the pitfalls of the genre of British gangster films: "When there's one success, people start flogging a dead horse."
Rounding out the extras are several deleted scenes, a short behind-the-scenes featurette which feels like a teaser, and two alternate endings which should spark some debate among fans of the film/genre.
Bottom Line:
Obviously descended from the creative vision of Tarrantino, "Layer Cake" partly pays tribute to that supercool slickness, glorifying the gangster life while nonetheless downplaying violence. Partly, it's London itself that director Vaughn paints with buckets of style. The locations are gorgeous, and there are plenty of wide-angle shots to give the city its due. Connolly and Vaughn imply that the gangster hierarchy is but a single social subculture of a heavily "layered" city. But in the end, it struck me that the film could have been more original, more energetic, and (for my tastes) require less serious concentration. And I don't even think of myself as a lazy movielover!
Video:
The picture quality on the standard DVD was quite stunning, mastered in High Definition and presented in 2.40:1 widescreen. I honestly can't see a difference in quality on this Blu-ray, the way I clearly could when I compared the two versions of "Casino Royale." It's a solid picture with good black levels, but you'd have to do a frame-by-frame stop-motion comparison to see the difference.
Audio:
The sound is another story, as is often the case. There's no way that uncompressed PCM 5.1 doesn't top Dolby Digital 5.1. It just fills the room better, and more naturally, with dialogue, ambient sounds, and FX. Alternate options of English and French 5.1 are available, with subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Mantrad), Korean, and Thai. Thank goodness for subtitles. There'll be a few times when you'll want to switch on the titles just to catch the slang-ridden dialogue: things like "gobshite," "toerag," "did his bird," and "let's have a little recce." Other times you'll want the subtitles on because the voices can dip into a level of quietness where it's tough to understand the characters, unless you've got an ear for Britspeak.
Extras:
The commentary by Vaughn and writer Connolly is better than most, useful because it will help you to get a handle on some of the aspects of this film that get lost in translation to a quicker-paced visual medium. There's also a featurette Q/A with Vaughn and Craig onstage at the National Film Theatre in London, September 2004, a low-key affair with audience and interviewer. But the pacing is sub-leisurely, and the lighting is bizarre, with lines of color slashing across the principles' faces. During the interview, as on the commentary, Vaughn talks about his attitude towards Quentin Tarrantino--he loves the director, but is no fan of gratuitous violence, which is why he chose to rein it in. Craig, meanwhile, talks about the pitfalls of the genre of British gangster films: "When there's one success, people start flogging a dead horse."
Rounding out the extras are several deleted scenes, a short behind-the-scenes featurette which feels like a teaser, and two alternate endings which should spark some debate among fans of the film/genre.
Bottom Line:
Obviously descended from the creative vision of Tarrantino, "Layer Cake" partly pays tribute to that supercool slickness, glorifying the gangster life while nonetheless downplaying violence. Partly, it's London itself that director Vaughn paints with buckets of style. The locations are gorgeous, and there are plenty of wide-angle shots to give the city its due. Connolly and Vaughn imply that the gangster hierarchy is but a single social subculture of a heavily "layered" city. But in the end, it struck me that the film could have been more original, more energetic, and (for my tastes) require less serious concentration. And I don't even think of myself as a lazy movielover!
Average user rating (1-5):
Not yet rated.
Not yet rated.
[release]20317[/release]