Crimson Rivers-Angels of the Apocalypse (Rivières Pourpres II) (2004)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Dolby Digital Trailer Featurette-Making Of Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Lighting, Weapons, Design, Corpses, Sound Design Deleted Scenes-Strip Bar Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	94:50
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Olivier Dahan
Studio Distributor	Studio Legende Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Jean Reno Benoît Magimel Christopher Lee Camille Natta Johnny Hallyday Gabrielle Lazure Augustin Legrand Serge Riaboukine André Penvern Francis Renaud David Saracino Michaël Abiteboul Eriq Ebouaney
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Colin Towns

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Hindi English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Crimson Rivers 2 : Angels of The Apocalypse is a French thriller from director Olivier Dahan, who has a background in painting and in directing music videos (as well as a few films).

    This film is a sequel to (you guessed it) Crimson Rivers, which also starred Jean Reno (The Professional, Ronin) as Commissaire Niemans, a senior detective called in by provincial police forces to investigate strange occurrences. In the first film, the events took place primarily in and around an exclusive University in the French Alps. There was plenty of snow and large doses of action and violence, Euro style. In Crimson Rivers 2, the action is set in the far darker surroundings of a monastery in which there have been a number of bizarre events. Niemans is joined by younger cop, Reda, played by Benoit Magimel, and later by Marie, an expert in religious mythology.

    Niemans is brought in this time to investigate a brutal murder in a monastery. He's soon joined by Reda, and as the two detectives pursue their investigations, further murders occur around them, all with religious links attached to them. They then find out that there's a mysterious organisation, headed by Heinrich von Garten (played by Christopher Lee) behind the killings. Their mission soon puts the detectives in confrontation with this group resulting in plenty of violence, guns and blood.

    Whilst parts of the film do convey a dark foreboding feeling quite effectively, others, like the dreadful sequence in the loft apartment, just reflect the Director's background in music video too strongly. That scene in question is especially spoiled by the overly loud and brash song playing in the background.

    Interestingly, the screenplay is co-written by renowned French movie maker, Luc Besson (Nikita, The Fifth Element). Besson also co-produced this film.

Video

    The transfer is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. Being a very recent big-budget production (by European standards) the transfer is very good.

    The picture is sharp throughout, though perhaps not exceptionally so. Black level and shadow detail are good, which is just as well as much of the film is shot in near darkness.

    Colour is used well during this film, and is transferred well to DVD. While much of the film's outdoor sequences have that muted European winter colour, there are some far richer colour palettes used in some indoor scenes. Flesh tones have a slight orange tinge to them, though not distractingly so.

    There are no visible MPEG artefacts, nor any visible film-to-video artefacts. There was no grain, nor any aliasing.

    Subtitles are available in English, as well as Hindi. The English subtitles aren't completely accurate but are pretty well timed to the onscreen dialogue. The subtitle stream even provides metric conversions for imperial measurements!

    This is a dual layered disc. The layer change was not noticeable on my player.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The soundtracks on this disc are English in Dolby Digital 5.1, and the original French, also in Dolby Digital 5.1.

    Both are great Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks in which the surround speakers are in use almost the entire time.

    The dialogue quality is fine at all times, though I found that in the English soundtrack the voices didn't 'blend' well into the rest of the sounds. They didn't have the same sense of spatiality or 'surroundiness'. The voices sounded too much like point sources, which is understandable given that they wouldn't have had the same acoustic treatment that the original soundtrack would have been granted. It is interesting that they've used English, American and French accents for the main characters (or at least people putting on the accents). It's better to listen to the original French soundtrack and just switch on the English subtitles if required.

    The music, by Colin Towns, uses the orchestra and sound effects to create an occasionally disturbing score that supports the onscreen suspense and action nicely. However, some of the French rock songs included didn't gel too well with this reviewer as they lent those scenes too much of a music video quality.

    This soundtrack is a great one to demonstrate why you paid all that money to have so many speakers in your home theatre.The rear surrounds are in use almost all the time to carry ambient noise, music, as well as directional effects. Just one example is the thunder at runtime 57:21.

    Like the surround speakers, the subwoofer, activated by its own .1 channel in the soundtrack, thumps in often to support sound effects, such as the frequent gunfire as well as the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Considering that this is a single-disc release, and of a French film, the extras included on this release are pretty good in terms of number and quality.

Dolby Digital Trailer - Ribbon.

    This is perhaps the least garish of all the Dolby Digital trailers.

Featurette - Making Of  (runtime 72:17)

    This is a great, detailed documentary about the making of the film. Unlike most of its counterparts on American DVDs, this documentary really does show the making of the film, not just a collection of publicity interviews with cast and crew with plenty of mutual admiration on show.

    There is plenty of behind the scenes footage, as well as interviews with the Director and other crew and cast. Particularly interesting was the in-depth examination of the filming of particular sequences. As the dialogue is predominantly in French, the English subtitle stream comes in very handy.

    This documentary is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. Excerpts from the film are presented at 2.35:1.

Featurette - Behind the Scenes

    This is really a collection of five separate short featurettes on specific aspects of making this film. They contain a considerable amount of detail based on interviews as well as lots of behind-the-scenes footage. The five featurettes are:

1. Lighting (runtime 4:44)
2. Weapons (6:59)
3. Design (5:24) - focuses on the design of the various sets
4. Corpses (4:55) - focuses on the many corpses throughout this film...well, the effects, not actual corpses!
5. Sound Design (4:51)

    Each featurette can be selected from the menu, or they can all be played via a "play all" option.

    All are presented at 1.78:1 and are 16x9 enhanced. There are English subtitles available.

Deleted Scene

    There is one relatively short scene that was left out of the final cut. In my opinion this should have been left in as it does connect with some things that are revealed later in the film. By the high quality of its presentation on this disc, I'd say it was cut very late in the process.

    This deleted scene is presented at 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1.

Theatrical Trailer

    The original trailer for Crimson Rivers 2, presented in 1.78:1 and letterboxed.

    From what I can determine, we get exactly the same release as in other regions.

    Given that, it would be best to opt for the R4 version.

    A reasonably exciting film, which at times varies between Gothic horror and cop drama, with a dash of Gallic humour thrown in. The performances are pretty good, with the usual laid-back persona of Jean Reno supported fairly well by the other cast. The film, as presented on this disc, looks and sounds great. The sound, in particular, is great. I would strongly recommend listening to the French soundtrack with the English subtitles turned on.

    The extras are quite reasonable, especially the 70-minute documentary.

    Unless you're a fan of Reno's, this might be best rented rather than owned as there's not terribly much to be gained from repeat viewing (except perhaps to demonstrate your surround system to friends!).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall