The Body (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Audio Production Notes Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	104:24
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jonas McCord
Studio Distributor	Magna Home Entertainment	Starring	Antonio Banderas Olivia Williams John Shrapnel John Wood Jason Flemyng Makram J. Khoury Ian McNeice Vernon Dobtcheff Derek Jacobi
Case	Click
RPI	$29.95	Music	Serge Colbert

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Body is a conspiracy theory movie. It takes what seems like a fairly straight-forward event, that of a tomb being discovered beneath the backyard of a shop owner in the city of Jerusalem who was simply digging a new basement, and offers up a convoluted story based around a body that is found within. Suddenly the question becomes "is this the body of Christ?", and to answer this, the director has put together a very decent cast including Antonio Banderas as Father Matt Gutierrez, a Jesuit Priest who is sent by the Vatican's Cardinal Pesci (John Wood) to disprove the theory that it is the body of Christ. Pesci's agenda is to defend the church, even at the cost of faith. Olivia Williams plays Sharon Golban, the Israeli archaeologist who discovers the body initially and seems determined to prove that it is Christ. John Shrapnel is Moshe Cohan, head of intelligence for the Israelis, who doesn't care what the body is if he can make political capital out of it. Jason Flemyng plays Father Winstead, Gutierrez's contact within Jerusalem and Derek Jacobi is Father Lavelle, the Dominican Priest whose report stirs the Vatican into action.

    The plot has some nice moments to it. There is a decent little sub-plot between the Israelis and the Muslims in Jerusalem to use the body for political gain, but overall the subject matter was too dry and the moments of action were too few and far between, making the movie tend to drag a little. There are plenty of little clues to lead you down false paths or to make your own determination, but it wasn't totally stirring stuff and the ending was a tad predictable. Overall, it was very watchable but wasn't the most brilliant of subject matters to base a movie around.

Video

    The original theatrical aspect ratio for this movie is listed as 2.39:1, so the presentation here of 2.35:1 is close to the mark. The transfer is 16x9 enhanced.

    The initial opening scenes are full of grain. Fortunately, it becomes more bearable with time, although it is omnipresent throughout. Generally the picture is very sharp, with excellent shadow detail even in the darkest scenes. Fine detail is good without being exceptional and low level noise isn't an issue with this transfer. Minor edge enhancement was noticeable throughout the movie.

    The colour is very suitable, with an excellent palette in use. Much of the movie's colours consist of light and dark browns for the buildings. The skin tones are spot-on and there is no evidence of colour bleed. There is no oversaturation in evidence, offering a very even colour spread overall.

    There was a lot of shimmering and aliasing on offer in this transfer. Many lines threaten to break up constantly. Fortunately, the only really poor sections are at 12:46, 50:51 and 58:24 with considerable break-up noticeable. There was also a very noticeable moiré effect at 23:06. The usual film artefacts were few and far between. Most of the flecks were black and hardly noticeable.

    There are no subtitles on this disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The opening couple of minutes really set the tone for the audio in this movie. The full-bodied sound, excellent use of the surrounds and subwoofer put you right in the middle of a sonic experience.

    With no subtitles to fall back on, some of Antonio Banderas' words were hard to make out, probably due to the fact that he isn't a native English speaker. Apart from this minor problem though, the dialogue and audio sync appeared spot on.

    The music was excellent overall. Subtly used, it infiltrated the action on-screen and conveyed the atmospherics admirably.

    The surround channel experience is excellent. The surrounds were used extensively to augment the music, giving a solid enveloping sound. Sound effects, explosions and gunfire were often noticeable through the rears making the movie very pleasing aurally.

    The subwoofer was judiciously used to underlay the music with a solid bass sound. Although not used quite as extensively elsewhere in the movie, it did provide solid sound during the action sequences.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Production Notes

Biographies-Cast & Crew

Theatrical Trailer

    It seems that the R1 version of this disc is similarly specified to the R4 disc, so you can take your pick.

    Competently directed with a decent cast, The Body simply wanted for a better plot. The overall look and feel is quite decent, so it's worth a look if you are into this sort of movie.

    The video was reasonably up-to-scratch for such a recent movie with the exception of aliasing, which seems to plague so many transfers these days.

    The audio was a pleasant surprise and is of better quality than the video.

    It's nice to see that the extras situation is pretty much status quo, ie: bugger all!

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall