Replicant (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Dolby Digital Trailer-City
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	95:57
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ringo Lam
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Jean-Claude Van Damme Michael Rooker Catherine Dent
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Guy Zerafa

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Dutch Bulgarian Hungarian Polish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, subtle
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Replicant is the story of Garrotte (John-Claude Van Damme), a deranged serial killer whose anger is directed at single mothers. Garrotte suffered from an extremely traumatic childhood that directly moulded him into a killer that has so far taken the lives of 10 young women.

    The story begins as Garrotte (aka "The Torch") is about to make his 11th kill. The victim is able to call the police who immediately respond to the distress call. As the law, headed by Jake Riley (Michael Rooker), is making its way up in the lift, they notice smoke filling the lift well and instantly know that they are not dealing with an amateur but the purely evil "Torch". And, like for the other murders, he slips away into the night.

    After 3 years, Jake has been unable to catch "The Torch" and decides to quit the force. His special talents are recognised by a government agency intent in bringing this evil man to justice, and he joins their team. The agency's secret weapon is Replicant (John-Claude Van Damme), a genetic copy of the killer. As part of Jake's assignment, he is teamed up with the Replicant and has to stir emotions and physical reactions within its mind in the hope that it will lead to the killer.

    The story continues as Jake endeavours to come up with some ingenious methods of extracting this information so that it may edge him ever-closer to The Torch. But, is the Replicant too exact a copy or not?

Video

    For a single layered disc, this transfer is surprisingly free of problems and is a very nice transfer.

    The transfer is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is relatively clear and sharp throughout the entire presentation. Shadow detail is also excellent, with a nice amount of detail revealed in the darkly lit sections of the film. The scene from 67:45 is a good example of the detail that is on offer. There is little low level noise to spoil the presentation.

    The colours were cleanly defined and true-to-life in appearance. There were no irregularities with the colour rendition of this transfer, just beautifully clear colours to be seen.

    There were no MPEG artefacts to be seen. Aliasing is well controlled and kept to a bare minimum and I feel it would be overly picky to mention any specific instances. Film artefacts are where this transfer falls down. Now don't get me wrong, the artefacts are usually small in size, but they run from the first frame right up to the last. The most notable section is from 36:04 to around 38:09 where small black specks appear as does the odd hair or two. It's a pity because the transfer was extremely nice up until this point.

    The subtitles are not exact but are pretty close to the spoken word. There were a few instances where single word replies were missed altogether.

    This disc is a single sided and single layered disc, so therefore there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    This is a nice audio transfer, but there were a few particular quirks that I will outline below.

    There is only a single English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track on this DVD.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times with no apparent hiss. Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on.

    The musical score by Guy Zerafa was a fitting choice for this style of movie. Overall, the sound was well mixed and flowed across all channels well during the musical sequences. The volume levels did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the movie.

    The surround channels were very aggressively used for ambience, music and for lots of special effects. Nice examples can be heard at 7:27, 23:08 and 24:39 as a storm rumbles through the speakers and seems to acoustically dance across the sky. Directional effects are handled well with the exception of rainfall at 91:04. The rain is focused across the front soundstage only at this point which gives a detached feeling to the scene. Early on in the movie, rainfall flowed more naturally across all speakers. At 52:50 a passing car heads across the screen but the sound is ahead of the vehicle as it heads out of the scene.

    The subwoofer was active during the action sequences, but some more emphasis from this channel could have been used throughout the entire presentation. Some explosions were not as emphatic as I would have liked them to be.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras present on this disc.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Dolby Digital 2.0 audio
• Screen-specific audio commentary with actors Jean Claude Van Damme and Michael Rooker
• Deleted scenes
• Storyboards
• Still gallery
• Filmographies
• Theatrical trailer

• Nothing

    Overall, I enjoyed Replicant and will be watching it again. It is a typical "Muscles from Brussels" formulaic vehicle which works well. There are some scenes that will upset some viewers, and go towards earning this movie's MA rating.

    The video quality is great but it's a shame that more film artefacts were not filtered out of the final transfer.

    The audio quality may be rather limiting to some with only a Dolby Digital 5.1 track on the disc. The track did have its particular quirks which I have already pointed out.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall