The High Crusade (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	87:07
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Klaus Knoesel Holger Neuhäuser
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	John Rhys-Davies Rick Overton Michael Des Barres Catherine Punch Patrick Brymer Debbie Lee Carrington Rinaldo Talamonti Frank Kanakusen Tahareh Becker Ray Cokes Holger Neuhäuser Werner Baum Tim Luna
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	4. Stock

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.55:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.55:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The High Crusade is based on science fiction writer Poul Anderson's novel of the same name. Unfortunately, the film completely fails to recreate the humour of the book. Instead, it comes off as a rather lame Monty Python rip-off. The story centres around a bumbling group of medieval knights who come into possession of an alien spacecraft. They try and take it to Jerusalem to aid a fellow noble in distress, but end up on one of the alien's colony worlds instead. Of course, our hapless heroes manage to avert an alien invasion of Earth and return home in time for dinner. There are some mildly amusing moments, however some painful characterisations and lazy humour spoil the film's potential. On the plus side, there are some very nice old school special effects sequences (by old school I mean model-based rather than CGI).

Video

    The High Crusade is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.55:1 with no 16x9 enhancement

    The transfer is really the only stand-out feature of this release. The sharpness and clarity of the on-screen image is very good. There is no noticeable grain or pixelization anywhere and the shadow detail is also good. There are numerous scenes where the lighting is low, particularly on the alien outpost, with the background detail remaining very sharp and clear.

    The DVD's colour presentation is also very good with skin tones remaining well balanced against the more garish colours on the alien ship. The original material was obviously of a high quality and the film seems to have been a big budget flop, as it is relatively obscure even though it was released in 1995.

    There are virtually no artefacts throughout the film. If you look very very carefully, you can occasionally see very brief, very small spots pop up. However, in normal viewing, the transfer is really very clean.

    There are no subtitles on this single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The only audio option available for The High Crusade is Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. The sound has been mixed well with the dialogue always at the fore and always in sync. English is the only language option on the disc.

    There are no clicks or dropouts in the soundtrack and the audio quality of the DVD is as good as its visual quality.

    Music plays a very small part in the overall soundtrack but is used effectively enough and always sounds good in context. There is no surround or subwoofer usage.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras on this disc. Heck, there isn't even a menu!

    After a bit of digging around, I found mentions of a 'making of' documentary on the R1 disc and also of it being a fullscreen only release. Therefore, it is difficult to say which is best. If you are interested in the making of the film, then the R1 version would probably be more attractive, however the 2.55:1 presentation of the R4 disc makes it the best choice if you are only interested in the film itself.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall