holy poor effort ! (Batman - Special Edition (DVD))

Member Name: utero

Product:	Batman - Special Edition (DVD)
Date:	25/03/01 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: decent comic book film

Disadvantages: bad transfer, no real extras

When dvd was first brought onto the market Warner bros was one of the forst studios to get on the bandwagon with some initial releases.

Batman was one of these titles and it really shows the infancy of dvd titles.

The film itself is a great dark gothic comic book movie. It's everythngi you'd expect from the dark knight. Keaton is the best of the cinematic batmans so far and is a charming Bruce Wayne. Jack Nicholson is wonderfully over the top as The Joker and at times domintes too much. Still it's enjoyable but not as good as it's sequel.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen TV's. The problem is sadly the transfer which is abysmal. It's grainy, full of dirt and scratch and frankly everything looks washed out. I wouldn't be surprised if Warners made this transfer from a VHS copy.

Sound wise it's presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, it's noting special and has a few surround effects but could have been so much more.

The extras are a few pages of dull production notes, the menus are very clunky and dull also. It's basically the VHS version with a few extra knobs on.

There have been rumours that the films will be re-visited and get special editions in the near future. This would seem likely as there are two new Batman films in the pipeline and the cash cow opportunity would be too good to miss.

However for now you'll have to make do with this average version. At least it's a budget title.

Summary: