Link (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	99:11
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Richard Franklin
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Elisabeth Shue Terence Stamp Steven Pinner Richard Garnett David O'Hara Kevin Lloyd Joe Belcher
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Jerry Goldsmith

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    When the most redeeming feature of a movie is a gratuitous nude scene then you know that this is not going to be a great movie. Actually the best thing I can say about this effort is that it's a pretty silly movie. The plot is completely predictable and by and large the characters take silly actions that you just know are going to land them in trouble. This might be OK in a comedy but this movie is meant to be taken seriously. If this is the type of movie that excites you then you won't be disappointed by Link.

    The plot is simplistic. Basically we have a British University professor, Dr. Steven Phillip (Terence Stamp), who specialises in training apes to utilise their intelligence to communicate with humans. He gives a summer job to an American student, Jane Chase (Elisabeth Shue). The job involves helping him around his secluded country house and with his research. Naturally no one else lives at this house except the Doctor and his 3 apes: Link is old but very intelligent and he just loves to play with matches, Voodoo who is very wild, and Imp a young chimp who is relatively new to the Doctor's training methods. The Doctor tries to sell Link but when no buyer is found he arranges to have him taken away and put down. Shortly thereafter the Doctor disappears leaving Jane alone in the isolated house. Just for added excitement the phone goes dead (surprise, surprise) and  the countryside surrounding the house is inhabited with ferocious wild dogs. Oh, and the only car seems to have been taken by the doctor. This leaves Jane trapped at the house with no way of leaving. This isn't a problem until things start to go south.

Video

    This transfer was noticeably lacking in sharpness but was otherwise adequate.

    The movie is present in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced. While I haven't been able to confirm it, I suspect that this is the original aspect ratio for this movie.

    The image is not particularly sharp but still much better than you'd get from a VHS tape. There are no problems with shadow detail and there's no low level noise. If you look very closely you may detect some very slight edge enhancement but in this transfer this is not a problem and is quite easily overlooked..

    The colour palette had a muted look which was consistent with the desolate location. In general the colour also gave the impression of being quite dated with none of the vibrancy that you expect from a more modern production.

    I didn't note any compression artefacts nor any aliasing. There was, by way of film artefacts, a smattering of small marks that were well below my intrusion threshold. There was also a fine vertical line that lasted for a few seconds starting at 19:13.

    No subtitles have been provided on this title.

    There is no layer change on this single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio transfer is adequate for the task with only a few minor flaws.

    This disc features a single English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded audio track.

    While there was no problems with the dialogue quality there were a couple of low level clicks and pops present.

    There were no evident problems with the audio sync.

    The original music was scored by the renowned Jerry Goldsmith who is a well known and very successful composer of movie and TV series scores over a wide range of genres. There is unfortunately nothing of particular note in this effort.. As far  as non-original music is concerned we do get a very predictable piece: Apeman by The Kinks.

    While the surrounds are used their contribution is pretty minimal.

    The subwoofer contributes noticeably both to the musical score and the effects when necessary.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras folks. Zip, nada, not a one.

Menu

    The menu, which is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, is 16x9 enhanced but is very basic featuring neither audio nor animation.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• Trailer
• TV spots

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

• Nothing

    In my view both versions are equally good with no compelling reason to prefer one over the other.

    Link is not a great movie. Actually, it's not really even a very good movie. The plot is completely predictable and the characters are quite silly. There's really nothing here that I could recommend.

    The video quality is fair.

    The audio quality is good.

    There are no extras on this bare bones disc.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall