Gattaca

Gattaca was one of the more intelligent sci-fi movies I saw in 1998, probably more so than Contact. It's main focus on a society made of genetically engineered humans that are theoretically supposed to be the "elite".

Vincent, Ethan Hawke, is a god child, a child conceived out of love rather than engineered in a lab. Because of this he is an "in-valid" human whose life expectancy is very low and who will suffer from debiltating diseases because of an imperfect body, mind and soul.

But Vincent wants to be "valid" so that he can live his life-long dream of travelling into space. To do so, he takes the identity of a "valid" human, Jerome. The real Jerome supplies Vincent with blood, urine and hair samples so that he can bypass all the genetic security checks in Gattaca.

Sounds very scientific. Let's throw in some suspense. A teacher at Gattaca has been murdered and Vincents "in-valid" hair sample has been found at the scene of the crime but as his identity registers as Jerome, he is safe from the detectives hunting down the killer. Or so he thinks.

From here the suspense increases as Vincent works harder to conceal his identity only to climax with an interesting little twist at the end of the movie.

This is a step down from previous Columbia Transfers. The image is very sharp, almost too sharp at times lending itself to obvious edge enhancement in some scenes. It's not distractive in any way but it is noticeable when comparing to their other great transfers.

At times colors look a little washed out and chroma noise seems to be present but on closer inspection it seems this is the directors intended visual presentation.

Because of this blandness in the color, certain scenes containing blues and yellows and reds stand out alot more and emphasise the point that the movie is correctly rendered as intended.

There is one scene when the detective is placing a bloody keyboard into a plastic bag that really highlights the definition that dvd is capable of.

There is only one way to describe this soundtrack and that is 'subtle'. It's a quiet soundtrack with not as much ambience as you would normally be used to and then out of nowhere you are hit with some 'subtle' surround effects that really do emphasise the scene.

This is an excellent portrayal of the movie when done this way. It just suits the tone nicely. There are a few times when we do get some entertaining aural dynamics.

For instance, a quiet scene suddenly switches to a roaring beach as waves come crashing in. It doesn't blast your senses as it is 'subtle', that perfect word again.

If you're after a scene that demonstrates directionality then the scene where a partially blind Vincent begins to walk across a busy freeway. You can hear every individual car zooming from left to right or from front to back all around you with that cool electric car sound effect.

The only downside to the audio is the center channel. It seemed a bit low and I had to crank it up a little to hear what was been said. It's not overly low though.

An interesting mix of extras on the disc. The main item is the deleted scenes where some poorly rendered widescreen scenes are shown from some very very simple scenes. They didn't seem to have much bearing on the movie on the whole so it's understandable why they were left out. The most entertaining out take is the final one whereby Vincents doctor does an, at first, disgusting gesture, to the laughter of the off camera crew.

A theatrical trailer is included along with a featurette that includes cast members talking about their roles and the movie as a whole.

Your now usual Cast & Crew filmographies are included also.

Overall, a good collection of extras for an otherwise non-special edition disc.

This is an excellent sci-fi movie, one of the best in the past 5 years atleast and surely to keep you hooked to the screen. I can't describe the whole package in a simple way without going through the entire plot.

Try it for yourself if you haven't already seen it and if you have, and enjoyed it, and are wondering if its a good dvd overall, then YES it is, a worthy addition to your collection.

NOTE: It has been confirmed, even on my equipment, that this disc will NOT play the widescreen side on any dvd-rom based system. The Pan & Scan side works fine but the other side has a mastering problem that renders it useless.