Ghost Ship (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Dolby Digital Trailer-Rain Main Menu Audio & Animation Filmographies-Cast & Crew Featurette Featurette-Secrets of the Antonia Graza Featurette-Visual FX Featurette Featurette-A Closer Look At The Gore Featurette-Designing The Ghost Ship Music Video-Not Falling Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	86:57 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (49:01)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Steve Beck
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Gabriel Byrne Julianna Margulies Ron Eldard Desmond Harrington Isaiah Washington Alex Dimitriades Karl Urban Emily Browning
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$36.95	Music	John Frizzell

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    As the camera sweeps across the ocean and draws nearer the ship, tranquil music is playing and instantly brings to mind the old TV series The Love Boat. I grabbed the DVD cover and checked the dark ship had an image of a skull superimposed over the top. Hmmm, the cover does not match what I am seeing, as I glance back to the television screen again. Even the text used to display the movie and actor names is in pink and its gentle swirling nature is more suitable to being used on a birthday invitation. But, I thought, "I will keep watching to see how this movie pans out". Less than 2 minutes pass, and all thoughts of The Love Boat have completely vanished, and I wonder how the shocking nature of the introduction can level out to a plot that has another 88 minutes to play.

    Well, it did turn out to be a fantastic movie, that was very well acted, and the writing has pulled together a mixture of ideas and make what amounts to one of my most enjoyable reviews of the year.

    Ghost Ship is from the producers Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Gilbert Adler who have bought us other great titles, including: The Matrix trilogy, Swordfish, Thir13en Ghosts and The House on Haunted Hill. Mark Hanlon provides the brilliant base story; he was assisted in modifying it to suit the screen by John Pogue who also had a writing role for another of my favourites US Marshals. Prior to this Mark's only other writing credit was for Buddy Boy released back in 1999.

    The movie starts in 1962 on board the luxury Italian ocean liner Antonia Graza. This provides a brief introduction to the ship, crew, and passengers, all without a word being spoken which is an impressive directing feat on its own. The events on board soon explain why this is now a ghost ship, but then we flick over to the present day. Now we are on another ship, this time a salvage tug boat called the Arctic Warrior run by Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and his small crew of five. After the crew return to dock and busy celebrating their latest successful operation they are approached by Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) . Jack has spotted an ocean liner floating with the currents not far from their present location and he wants a percentage of whatever is salvaged.

    The crew of Dodge (Ron Eldard), Epps (Julianna Margulies), Greer (Isaiah Washington), Munder (Karl Urban), and Santos (Alex Dimitriades), soon learn that the floating ship is in fact the missing Antonia Graza who has not been seen, nor heard from, since the events of 1962. Luckily Murphy is a walking encyclopaedia about the ship and its supposed cargo, but he does not know that the ship is in fact carrying quite a bounty in gold bullion. When the crew find the bounty they decide to forget the salvage of the ship and instead take the gold and head for port.

    But someone or something on the ship has different ideas and the crew will not be leaving the confines of the Antonia Graza alive...

    I am not a fan of the typical horror film, finding them rather simplistic and pointless. Moviegoers who think the same should not be deterred from seeing this flick. It is very well put together, and while there is some gore and blood and guts it becomes more of a suspense movie as it progresses. Broaden your horizons and give this one a go! The visual effects are stunning and elements have been produced by the Australian effects company Photon.

Video

    The video transfer of this movie is superb, and is of reference quality.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. This is close to the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    The transfer is extremely clear and extremely sharp with no noticeable problems. It is really a magnificent transfer. Shadow detail is exemplary, which is just as well, because inside the ship, which is the majority of the film, is always in low light. There is still an enormous amount of detail revealed in every scene and the few instances when detail diminishes is only to put you on the edge of your seat. There is no low level noise.

    The colours were as real as you would expect to see with your own eyes. The hot red dress worn by Francesca is bright and bold, and is in stark contrast to the dull and often rust laden walls of the ship. Scenes outside the ship are also full of colour and the orange Arctic Warrior at 5:20 is another example.

    There was not a single MPEG artefact to be seen. Aliasing was completely missing from this transfer and makes for a pleasant change. I noticed a total of 4 film artefacts and all were white and small in nature. The rest of the transfer is completely devoid of them and even viewers with projectors will be impressed by the quality of this film.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed in the middle of Chapter 15. It is just after Epps says "I need you" when there is a natural pause as the crew think about what she has just said. The result is that fast players just slice through the scene and slower players will extend this natural pause and not really make it obvious. There is also no audio at this point so this typical telltale sign of a transition from one layer to the other is not heard either. All in all very well placed and a much better choice that if they had have waited until Chapter 16 which would have been much more noticeable for the slower players.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    This is a magnificent audio transfer, and is of reference quality.

    There is only the one audio track on this DVD which is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times with no hiss being apparent.

    Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on.

    The musical score, by John Frizzell, was very unusual at the start. As I said, originally it was not suited for a movie of this name. But when you think about it in the right context, which was a jovial ship back in 1962, on a beautiful sky-lit night it was perfect. Then when the mood of the ship changed so too did the music and it was responsible for taking you on the emotional ride that matched the on-screen action.

    A good image deserves a good soundtrack and luckily we are blessed with both here. The dynamics and fidelity are wide and expansive with subtle but very effective use of the surrounds. Several times I found myself looking around until I realised that these were the noises of the ship talking. The surrounds were also effectively used for the music which appears throughout the film. Directional effects are also subtle but they do make their presence well known when required to match the on screen action. The eerie music that floats across the surrounds is especially noticeable at 110:20 and provides a truly enveloping and immersive experience.

    The subwoofer was highly active in 3 places. The first took place at 46:03 with a massive explosion and shortly after there was an even bigger one. The subwoofer exploded with a force equal to the action and flames licking the screen. There was a great sense of a wow factor here followed by a level of pride that the sub handled the task well!!

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Cast and Crew

    This section features the main cast and gives a list of their movie credits. The screenplay writers and director are also featured.

• Julianna Margulies (Epps)
• Ron Eldard (Dodge)
• Desmond Harrington (Ferriman)
• Isaiah Washington (Greer)
• Gabriel Byrne (Murphy)
• Mark Hanlon for Screenplay
• John Pogue for Screenplay
• Steve Beck Director

Documentary (15:06)

Secrets of the Antonia Graza

Visual FX Featurette (6:03)

A Closer Look At The Gore (5:34)

   Yet another great featurette that is too short. This one concerns itself with the opening scene and how all the gore was produced. Jason Beard from JMB, and Howard Burger from KMB (both effects companies), take us through the process that went into making the visual effects for this movie. You get to see the gore up close and personal and some of the effects are so simple to produce it was amazing. The other lifelike models were astounding in the level of detail that was produced. This featurette is 16x9 enhanced, and has Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Designing the Ghost Ship (5:43)

Music Video (5:43)

    Featured here is the film clip for the Mudvayne track Not Falling released by Epic Video. It is full of clips from the movie, as you might expect, and was featured in the movie. It has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 non-enhanced with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded sound.

Theatrical Trailer (2:11)

    A titillating clip that raises many questions, and would be sure to get the viewer's attention without revealing the key to the movie. It has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 non-enhanced with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

    There are two versions of this movie in Region 1: the wide-screen, like this one, and a full frame 1.33:1 ratio DVD. There has been no hint of a Region 4 release of the full-screen version, nor should there be. This widescreen version is superb.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• Holographic cover slipcase
• DVD-ROM content
• French subtitles and soundtrack
• Spanish subtitles

• Nothing

    The video quality is superb, and is of reference quality.

    The audio quality is superb, and is of reference quality.

    The extras are very interesting and are all a worthy inclusion.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall