Cocoon: The Return (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	110:32
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Daniel Petrie
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Don Ameche Wilford Brimley Courteney Cox Hume Cronyn Jack Gilford Steve Guttenberg Barret Oliver Maureen Stapleton Elaine Stritch Jessica Tandy Gwen Verdon Tahnee Welch Linda Harrison
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$24.95	Music	James Horner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Danish Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish French German Italian Norwegian Portuguese Spanish Swedish Turkish French Titling German Titling Italian Titling Spanish Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Cocoon: The Return (1988) is the sequel to Cocoon (1985), which was a pretty good movie all told. This sequel has managed to do what most sequels do not and that is retain all the original cast from the initial movie. This is a big plus for this movie which sees the characters return from Antarea to retrieve the remaining cocoons that were left on the bottom of the ocean before they are removed by a research group from the St Petersburg Oceanographic Institute.

    Unfortunately, one of the big minuses for the film is that the magic of  Ron Howard's direction is missing. Had Ron Howard directed this movie as he did with the original then I think this sequel would have been just as successful.

    This movie is really more about the emotions and torments of growing old, with an in-your-face defiance of what society expects from the elderly. This is what everyone hopes it will be like in their retirement years, but the movie brings with it the reality as well as the fantasy.

    There are some stellar performances by the cast members and these alone are reason enough to watch this movie. I guarantee that if you are prone to being the slightest bit emotional then you will need a box of tissues at the ready. For those that like a bit of humour then rest assured that your needs have also been catered for.

    The one thing that annoyed me the most whilst watching this movie was that it has been heavily edited from its original release, which has affected the story flow. The first scene to be completely cut from this edition was Bernie's attempted suicide which should be seen within the first opening minutes of the movie. Unfortunately, the editing did not stop there as there were quite a few other scenes that have been deleted.

Video

    Please note that the following comments are based on my viewing this transfer on a large screen (102"). This transfer is far more palatable on smaller display devices such as 76 cm CRTs.

    The movie has been transferred in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    Overall, the movie suffers from a lack of sharpness. The shadow detail is pretty bad, most noticeably in the nightclub scenes. There is also some low level noise present, again most noticeable during the nightclub scenes, which I found it to be very annoying. Additionally, the transfer suffers from edge enhancement, readily seen when viewing the exterior shots of the St Petersburg Oceanographic Institute.

    I did not note any problems associated with the colour in this transfer - the colours were vibrant and there was no obvious colour bleeding.

    Unfortunately, however, the video transfer is, for want of a better word, horrendous for those who have big screen capabilities due to MPEG artefacting. The MPEG encoding has resulted in severe MPEG compression artefacts and the transfer is badly affected throughout the entire movie. Thankfully, there is no aliasing to be seen.

    Subtitles are available in the following language; English for the Hearing Impaired, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish, Portuguese and Spanish.

    The layer change occurs at 55:23.

    It is a shame that this movie has been given such a poor transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Audio is available in English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s). It is also available in German, Italian, Spanish, Polish and French, however, only the English track is in Dolby Digital 5.1 - the rest are in Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    Dialogue is clear and nicely mixed. There was no evidence of any lip sync problems and there were also no problems associated with spurious background processing noises.

    If you like the big band era then you will enjoy this music score, which was composed by the very talented James Horner. James has composed the music to many fine movies, including Apollo 13 and Braveheart (for which he received two Academy Award nominations). However, it was not until he composed the music for Titanic that he truly made his mark - the Titanic score gained him two Academy Awards. The music for Cocoon: The Return was every bit as good as the original movie (Cocoon) which I have as part of my collection. I am a fan of the Glen Miller style of music and this style is what immerses you in a lively sound field during the beach and nightclub scenes.

    The surround channels get an appropriate amount of use, but remember that this movie is primarily a dialogue intensive movie. There is occasional good use of the surround channels - especially worthy of note is the restaurant scene, but I will leave you to experience that first hand rather than spoil the moment. As you would expect from a predominantly dialogue oriented movie, there is little use of the subwoofer, however on a few occasions it is given a little work-out.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The menu is presented at 1.78:1 and is still and silent. There are no extras.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    The Region 1 version of this DVD offers both widescreen and Pan & Scan versions on a dual sided DVD. Other than that, the R1 and R4 versions are the same.

    I quite enjoyed this movie, even though it has been given a very ordinary video transfer. It serves to remind us that those we see as elderly still harbour the passions of their youth. I think anyone viewing this will appreciate the emotional bonds which exist between family and friends and how those emotions can reach out to others to guide them through life.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall