Attila the Hun (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Adventure	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	170:00
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (83:39)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Dick Lowry
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Powers Boothe Simmone Jade MacKinnon Tim Curry Reg Rogers Gerard Butler
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Nick Glennie-Smith

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English German French Dutch	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Attila the Hun was presented as a mini-series on US television. It has been re-cut into a movie, albeit quite a long one, for DVD.

    There really was a man called Attila the Hun. He really did challenge the Roman Empire. But most of this plot has come from fertile imagination, rather than historical research. Do not treat this as a historical treatise, but rather as an enjoyable saga. It's like Gladiator in that way. Some of the names are taken from real people, but they are not portrayed accurately.

    This movie begins when Attila's village is attacked, and his father and grandmother are slain. Attila (Rollo Weeks) escapes, and survives. He is found, weeks later, by his father's brother, who is King Rua (Steven Berkoff), leader of one of the tribes of Huns. Rua takes him in, as he has previously taken in his mother and elder brother, Bleda. Rua is warned that Attila will cause trouble, making Bleda's succession unclear. Attila meets Galen (Pauline Lynch), a witch / seer, who provides us with much of the exposition regarding Hun legends. Attila grows to manhood among them.

    Meanwhile, we see Rome. We meet a Roman called Flavius Aetius (Powers Boothe) in prison. Then we're introduced to the emperor of the Western Roman Empire, an simpleton called Valentinian (Reg Rogers), who is being warned by Felix (Jonathon Hyde) that the Huns are a serious threat. The Emperor is too stupid to realise the problem, but his mother Placida (Alice Krige) is the real power behind the throne, and she asks what can be done. Felix suggests that only Flavius can help (he lived among the Huns as a child). Placida is opposed to this, for he tried to depose her, which is why she had him thrown in prison. The other significant Romans are Honoria (Kirsty Marshall), sister to Valentian, Lydia (Kate Steavenson Payne), daughter to Flavius, and Theodosius (Tim Curry), emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. Placida yields the point, and frees Flavius to deal with the Huns. Flavius is perhaps the last true general in Rome - he is loyal to the concept of Rome, rather than to the people who rule. There are few things as dangerous as an idealist or patriot...

    Attila (Gerard Butler) leads a raid on a village in Roman lands. A pretty red-headed woman, N'Kara (Simmone Jade MacKinnon) catches his eye; although she killed many Hun warriors, he has her spared, intending her for himself. Bleda (Tommy Flanagan), whose enmity for Attila has grown, takes the woman to spite him. By Hun law, a woman does not belong to a man until she bears him a child; Galen helps N'Kara avoid bearing a child by providing her with contraceptive seeds.

    Flavius travels to Rua's land to deal with the Hun problem. He does so by subterfuge, attempting to create a problem between the Huns and the Visigoths, by presenting a Hun corpse supposedly mutilated by the Visigoths. Attila sees through the ruse, but handles things badly. Flavius talks to Attila quietly later, explaining how he might have handled things better. Flavius sees something of himself in Attila, and attempts to teach him trickery / tactics.

    Flavius and Attila lead a combined force of Romans and Huns against the Visigoths. Flavius admires Attila, and persuades him to visit Rome. We get to see a sanitised version of the corruption and decadence that afflicts the aging Roman Empire. Attila does see things in Rome that he likes, though, like baths and Honoria. He lingers, heading home only when King Rua is reported dead. Flavius explains to Attila how he can find a pretext to challenge Bleda for the crown - Attila learns a lot about strategy from Flavius.

    Now the pieces are in place, and the developments are inevitable. The real conflict is between Flavius and Attila, although it plays out as conflict between the old Roman Empire and the new empire created by Attila.

    Attila's army is shown using trebuchets (a form of catapult) against a castle - I am unsure if they had been invented at this time. The arms and armour are also somewhat questionable, but less obviously out of place. The battle scenes are fairly sanitised - no great gouts of blood or severed limbs, although we see blood on weapons. Close-up deaths are often of the knife-in-the-gut-just-below-screen-level variety. The battle scenes use far too few soldiers - budget constraints, I guess - this is perhaps the weakest part of this production. The small size of what are supposed to be great battles is just too obvious - very disappointing.

    Interestingly, the scene selection menu shows the opening scene with 400 AD splashed across a map. That date is not shown in the movie, the map is shown by itself. The prologue would make more sense with the date in place. Strange.

    This is a good movie, with a grand storyline, and larger-than-life characters. There are much worse ways to spend three hours.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. I'm guessing that it was filmed for HDTV, making this the intended aspect ratio.

    The picture is softened just enough to make for a film-like presentation. There's excellent shadow detail. There is more than a little low-level noise on some of the early night scenes (most notably the night scene on Attila's arrival in Rua's camp). There are traces of mosquito noise on a few backgrounds, but they are not overly distracting.

    Colour is beautifully presented: deep, rich colours with no colour bleed or oversaturation.

    There are few film artefacts, but there are moments of noticeable film grain. There are no visible MPEG artefacts. There is aliasing on all the usual suspects (bow strings, edges of stairs), but it is rarely troubling. There is a little moire, but very little. There are only a few artefacts spread across nearly three hours of video - this is quite clean.

    There are subtitles in four languages: English, French, German and Dutch. The English subtitles are clean and clear, well-timed, and quite accurate.

    The disc is single-sided and dual-layered, formatted RSDL. The layer change is at 83:39, and it is not good. On one player it paused very noticeably. On another it stuttered badly, and had great difficulty recovering - in the end I had to eject the disc and reinsert it, and the problem diminished to the point where the disc was watchable. The disc I received for review was somewhat scratched, so I hope the problems are attributable to scratching, not to the transfer. Still, even at its best, this is not a good layer change - quite distracting - good thing it only takes a moment out of the nearly three hours of the movie.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three soundtracks; English, German, and French. The English soundtrack was the only one I listened to. It is Dolby Digital 2.0, without surround encoding.

    The dialogue is readily understood, with everyone speaking English, accented in various ways. There's a slight lapse in audio sync at 38:13, but it is quite minor. I didn't notice any others.

    Nick Glenne-Smith's score does an excellent job of supporting the on-screen action. It is classic orchestral work, with an emphasis on strings. The themes in Rome are grandiose, those in Hun territory somewhat less so.

    The surrounds and the subwoofer are not called upon by this soundtrack. A shame, really, because some of the bass lines in the scores might have realised some benefit from the subwoofer's help. If you have good bass handling in your mains you'll hear some low bass in a couple of places.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    No extras. Nothing, nada, nil.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent. Nothing special, but perfectly functional.

    The Region 1 version of this disc has a 5.1 soundtrack (rather than the 2.0 we have been given), a trailer, a making-of, and other extras. It sounds as though the R1 is the superior disc, but the video quality is reportedly similar to ours. Difficult to decide to which to prefer. It is likely that the two will even cost similar amounts.

    An epic movie, reasonably well-made, presented nicely on DVD.

    The video is very good.

    The audio is excellent, for a stereo soundtrack.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall