Firehead

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Scene Selection Animation Howling III Trailer Communion Trailer Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills Trailer
Rating
Year Released	1990
Running Time	83:53 Minutes (Not 88 Minutes as per packaging)
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Peter Yuval
Studio Distributor	Pyramid Distribution Sonart Music Vision	Starring	Christopher Plummer Chris Lemmon Martin Landau Brett Porter Gretchen Becker
Case	Alpha
RPI	$24.95	Music	Vladimir Horunzhy

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Original Aspect Ratio	?1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	No
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The film begins with a protest that is set in the crumbling Soviet Union, but was actually filmed in Alabama (and it shows). The general charged with containing the situation orders Ivan Tibor (Brett Porter) to detonate the explosives he's just planted, which will kill a lot of innocent civilians. When Ivan refuses this order, the general orders his other men to open fire upon the demonstrators. With crappy special effects shooting from his eyes, Ivan rescues a woman and her two children from being gunned down, and has a stern conversation with the general, before leaving the country.

    We then fast forward a couple of years to America, where Ivan has been living under the supervision of the military until he disappears and decides to blow up factories. Warren Hart (Chris Lemmon) and Meila Buchanan (Gretchen Becker) are paired together in order to find Ivan and calm him down before he destroys the world. I still question the wisdom of sending a man like Hart after Ivan, because he would have to be one of the most irritating characters I've ever seen in a B-grade science fiction film. Meanwhile, a sinister organization known only as The Upper Order, led by Colonel Vaughn (Christopher Plummer), are trying to exploit Ivan's powers for their own purposes. With these elements in place, it's a pointless race to see who manages to capture Ivan first, but I'm sure you won't care much once the premise has been set up.

    As a film, Firehead makes a good episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The story is dull and preposterous, the special effects are lame, and the acting is stupefying. Even the unintentional comedy factor cannot possibly save this hideous film, so don't say that I didn't warn you.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and it is obviously not 16x9 Enhanced. Unlike Howling III, however, the transfer appears to have actually been panned and scanned rather than vertically stretched. It is hard to determine how much picture information we are missing out on, because neither the Internet Movie Database nor Widescreen Review provide any meaningful technical information about this film. The transfer's sharpness can best be described as mediocre, with enough clarity to make out the salient details being present. The shadow detail is also mediocre, with blacks mostly being featureless. Low-level noise didn't appear to be a problem for this transfer.

    The colour saturation is flat and washed-out, with blues not being particularly blue, reds not being particularly red, and greens not being particularly green. Colour bleeding and composite artefacts can be found in the opening credits, with dot crawl being especially problematic in the red typeface. Colour bleeding often appears to be on the verge of breaking out during much of the feature, with the edges of colours, red in particular, often being quite ill-defined.

    MPEG artefacts were not a serious issue for this transfer, although the picture is pretty lacking in resolution to begin with. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some telecine wobble at 00:01 and 27:42, to name the most obvious instances. Although these two instances were very obvious and distracting, their saving grace is that they don't last very long. Aliasing is a minor problem in this transfer, with venetian blinds and pieces of chrome, such as at 46:19, occasionally shimmering just enough to be noticed. For the most part, however, the aliasing problem is solved by the lack of resolution, which keeps the background from reaching enough sharpness for any problems to occur. Film artefacts consisted of frequent black and white marks on the picture that ranged from being barely noticeable to rather distracting. A horizontal scratch was noticed across the picture at 40:12.

Audio

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, which is not necessarily a good thing unless you want to savour the unintentional comedy. There are no perceptible problems with audio sync, save for some questionable dubbing of the sound effects. A hiss can be heard in the lower registers of the soundtrack through pretty much all of the film, and also in the dialogue during some sequences such as at 49:53, when Warren and Ivan return to Meila's home in search of some documents.

    The score music in this film is credited to Vladimir Horunzhy, and the composer's name seems to be the best thing about it. Every negative word you can think of to describe it applies here: clichéd, canned, and ultimately nondescript. Interestingly enough, the score music seems to be the only element of the soundtrack that doesn't have hiss in it at some point, although some cues sound like they were recorded on a cassette tape that has been stretched a little.

    The surround channels were used in the same manner as was the case with Howling III, in that they all seemed to be carrying the entire soundtrack with no separation between the surrounds or the stereo channels. The channels seemed to be well integrated because of this formatting, but a straight 1.0 mix could have done the job just as well. The subwoofer was present to support the music and action sequences, but there were also moments when it was inappropriately present in the mix, and produced little more than an indistinct rumble.

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    The video quality is acceptable.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall