When it comes to superhero superlatives, Spider-Man 3 proves that this is still the comics-to-film series to beat.
Video:
And boy, does it look fantabulous in Blu-ray. The 1080p Hi-Def picture is superb, with brilliant and nearly full color saturation, strong black levels, and the kind of detail that makes the whole surface shimmer with hyperrealist plasticity. The film is presented in 2.40:1 widescreen.
Audio:
Two solid options here, an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or an English PCM 5.1 uncompressed. It's close, and I know there are TrueHD lovers out there, but to my ear the richest soundtrack is still the uncompressed PCM. This is a film with a multitude of audio effects, and they move across the speakers with realistic precision and balance. Additional sound options are Dolby Digital 5.1 in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai, with subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, Chinese Mandarin, and Chinese Cantonese.
Extras:
Even the special features have subtitle options: Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese Mandarin, Thai, and Korean. This two-disc set seems to have all the bonus features found on the two-disc DVD. Disc one features two commentaries. The first features James Franco hamming it up as "director" of the project and taking the lead on a track that includes fellow actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Thomas Haden Church, and Bryce Dallas Howard. They're a relatively young bunch of actors who clearly want to have fun doing this commentary, as long as they have to do it at all, but there's not a whole lot of substance here. Better is the filmmaker's track that gives us producers Avi Arad, Grant Curtis, Laura Ziskin paired with visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk and editor Bob Murawski. This is the one to listen to if you want to know how the film was made. The group does a nice job of filling space without killing time or overlapping each other. Also included on disc one is a Snow Patrol music video and a blooper reel that'll get you laughing just because Maguire is such a natural-born nerd and giggles so easily when he messes up. There are also photo galleries divided into the categories of paintings, sculptures, special effects, and director/cast, plus two video game previews.
Disc two features eleven relatively short but substantial behind-the-scenes features. "Grains of Sand: Building Sandman" is a fascinating look at how they constructed this most challenging villain, with Stan Lee talking on-camera and plenty of behind-the-scenes shots and interviews with technicians. In fact, one real strength of all these features is that they don't just include honchos-on-camera. Real artists and mechanical wizards appear on-camera and talk about what they're doing as they're doing it. "Re-Imagining the Goblin" gives us a technician holding one of those sharp slice-and-dice armbands and talking about their construction (these things are lethal!), for example, while "Covered in Black: Creating Venom" takes us into the computer world for a look at how they accomplished the effects. One of my favorites, "Hanging on: Gwen Stacy and the Collapsing Floor" shows us how they used a monster hydraulic system to get that quick drop, rubber life-sized models of furniture dropped on real people below, and actors working with wires to make it appear they were sliding off to their dooms. Great stuff!
Other features include "Tangled Web: The Love Triangle of Spider-Man 3," "Wall of Water," "Inside the Editing Room," "The Science of Sound," and two location features, one on New York and the other Cleveland. Both location features are fascinating, as we learn a few things about the costs/risks of location shots and hear from actors about what playing in front of gawking crowds can do to the cast and crew.
All in all, it's a nice bundle of extras that should please Spidey fans. The only downer is that, given the family nature of the film, there are no games for the kiddies.
Bottom Line:
The Spider-Man series is more emotionally complex than most superhero films, and the third installment is the richest of the bunch, in that respect. To my mind, that depth and the extraordinary special effects make it the king of action-comic films.
And boy, does it look fantabulous in Blu-ray. The 1080p Hi-Def picture is superb, with brilliant and nearly full color saturation, strong black levels, and the kind of detail that makes the whole surface shimmer with hyperrealist plasticity. The film is presented in 2.40:1 widescreen.
Audio:
Two solid options here, an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or an English PCM 5.1 uncompressed. It's close, and I know there are TrueHD lovers out there, but to my ear the richest soundtrack is still the uncompressed PCM. This is a film with a multitude of audio effects, and they move across the speakers with realistic precision and balance. Additional sound options are Dolby Digital 5.1 in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai, with subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, Chinese Mandarin, and Chinese Cantonese.
Extras:
Even the special features have subtitle options: Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese Mandarin, Thai, and Korean. This two-disc set seems to have all the bonus features found on the two-disc DVD. Disc one features two commentaries. The first features James Franco hamming it up as "director" of the project and taking the lead on a track that includes fellow actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Thomas Haden Church, and Bryce Dallas Howard. They're a relatively young bunch of actors who clearly want to have fun doing this commentary, as long as they have to do it at all, but there's not a whole lot of substance here. Better is the filmmaker's track that gives us producers Avi Arad, Grant Curtis, Laura Ziskin paired with visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk and editor Bob Murawski. This is the one to listen to if you want to know how the film was made. The group does a nice job of filling space without killing time or overlapping each other. Also included on disc one is a Snow Patrol music video and a blooper reel that'll get you laughing just because Maguire is such a natural-born nerd and giggles so easily when he messes up. There are also photo galleries divided into the categories of paintings, sculptures, special effects, and director/cast, plus two video game previews.
Disc two features eleven relatively short but substantial behind-the-scenes features. "Grains of Sand: Building Sandman" is a fascinating look at how they constructed this most challenging villain, with Stan Lee talking on-camera and plenty of behind-the-scenes shots and interviews with technicians. In fact, one real strength of all these features is that they don't just include honchos-on-camera. Real artists and mechanical wizards appear on-camera and talk about what they're doing as they're doing it. "Re-Imagining the Goblin" gives us a technician holding one of those sharp slice-and-dice armbands and talking about their construction (these things are lethal!), for example, while "Covered in Black: Creating Venom" takes us into the computer world for a look at how they accomplished the effects. One of my favorites, "Hanging on: Gwen Stacy and the Collapsing Floor" shows us how they used a monster hydraulic system to get that quick drop, rubber life-sized models of furniture dropped on real people below, and actors working with wires to make it appear they were sliding off to their dooms. Great stuff!
Other features include "Tangled Web: The Love Triangle of Spider-Man 3," "Wall of Water," "Inside the Editing Room," "The Science of Sound," and two location features, one on New York and the other Cleveland. Both location features are fascinating, as we learn a few things about the costs/risks of location shots and hear from actors about what playing in front of gawking crowds can do to the cast and crew.
All in all, it's a nice bundle of extras that should please Spidey fans. The only downer is that, given the family nature of the film, there are no games for the kiddies.
Bottom Line:
The Spider-Man series is more emotionally complex than most superhero films, and the third installment is the richest of the bunch, in that respect. To my mind, that depth and the extraordinary special effects make it the king of action-comic films.
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[release]21887[/release]