Batman & Robin (1997) |
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Batman & Robin (1997) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
Biographies-Cast & Crew Production Notes Main Menu Audio |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1997 | ||
| Running Time | 120 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Programme | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Joel Schumacher |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Warner Home Video |
Starring |
Arnold Schwarzenegger George Clooney Chris O'Donnell Uma Thurman Alicia Silverstone Michael Gough Pat Hingle Elle Macpherson |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music | Elliot Goldenthal |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Arabic Polish Greek Czech Turkish Hungarian Icelandic Croatian English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
George Clooney is Batman in this instalment of the franchise. The maniacal enemies all set to destroy Gotham City are Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) and Bane (Jeep Swensen). Mr Freeze wants to freeze the world, and Poison Ivy wants to destroy all the animal species on the planet including all the humans.
There are a great deal of excellent stunt pieces and way-over-the-top action, and all-in-all, I found that it was quite an entertaining experience. It tended to drag a little in the middle after an excellent opening, but this was a minor quibble.
The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. Subtitles defaulted to ON.
The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear. However, black level was set too high, so there were no deep blacks, only dark greys. In addition to this, there was a significant amount of low level noise and grain apparent in the blacks and the low level blues. This marred the shadow detail somewhat, and made the transfer significantly worse than it otherwise would have been. Whilst everything on screen was brightly lit, this black level problem didn't matter as much, but when things got dark, then the picture got a little ugly. This problem could be corrected by turning the brightness down whilst watching this movie.
The colours were vibrant throughout, with large splashes of primary and secondary colours lending a comic-book look to this film. There was some chroma noise, particularly affecting deep blues.
No MPEG artefacts were noted. Aliasing was only very rarely present, but it was significant when it was present, such as on the door to the Bruce mansion, which shimmered severely. Film artefacts were very rare and essentially non-existent.
Dialogue was almost always completely clear and audible. Some dialogue, especially at the start of the movie, was a little hard to hear.
There were no audio sync problems with this disc.
The virtually omnipresent but still unremarkable musical score is by Elliot Goldenthal. It certainly had the appropriate Batman feel to it.
The surround channels were heavily used for this movie, from the aggressively surrounding opening titles, through to the end. Sound effects and music were aggressively placed throughout the soundfield, making this an extremely enveloping soundtrack, and an excellent experience. Split surround effects were often used with great effect.
The .1 channel was very aggressively used, receiving signal virtually thoughout the movie.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version misses out on;
FullScreen version
Other than this, the two versions are identically featured.
The video quality is generally excellent with the significant exception of having the black level set too high and consequently suffering with significant low level image noise. This is a shame as the other aspects of the video transfer are impeccable.
The audio quality is excellent, with a very aggressive surround presence being created by the soundtrack.
The extras are very limited.
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| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-505, using S-Video output |
| Display | Loewe Art-95 (95cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL). |
| Audio Decoder | Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital decoder. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | 2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer |
| Speakers | Philips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer |