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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Full Metal Jacket (Remastered) (1987)

Full Metal Jacket (Remastered) (1987)

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Released 3-Sep-2001

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category War Main Menu Audio
Theatrical Trailer-1.33:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (1:27)
Rating Rated R
Year Of Production 1987
Running Time 111:45
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (76:31) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Stanley Kubrick
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Matthew Modine
Adam Baldwin
Vincent D'Onofrio
R. Lee Ermey
Dorian Harewood
Arliss Howard
Kevyn Major Howard
Ed O'Ross
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $34.95 Music Abigail Mead


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.66:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
French
Italian
Dutch
Arabic
Spanish
Portuguese
German
Romanian
Bulgarian
English for the Hearing Impaired
Italian for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    There have probably been three great films made about the Vietnam War - Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. It seems a little odd that two years to the day after sitting down to review the original release of Full Metal Jacket, it still remains the only one of those three films to have yet made it to release status in our part of Region 4 - not once but twice. Whilst we are likely to get the delights of Platoon shortly, the lack of any announcement regarding the third part of this great triumvirate remains to me one of the great mysteries of Region 4 DVD. Anyway, in the absence of these other films, there are certainly worse ways of spending an evening than sitting down with what is one of the better entries in the filmography of the legendary Stanley Kubrick. Mind you, I have said it before and I will continue to say it - the stature of the film is definitely enhanced by the fact that the name on the film is Stanley Kubrick. Regrettably, the legend surrounding the man has taken on a far larger size than the actual quality of his entire output demands. Take out 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr Strangelove, Spartacus and possibly Full Metal Jacket and the resultant output is not one which would warrant any sort of legendary status in my view. Still we are here to discuss the new DVD release of the latter film, so on with the review.

    Basically tracing the journey of a platoon of United States Marine Corps rookies from their first day at boot camp through to their eventual postings in Vietnam, it cannot be denied that this is a powerful, if not entirely flattering, look at the United States Marine Corps myth. Like any bunch of rookies, the cast of characters are very diverse, including Joker (Matthew Modine), Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and Gomer (Vincent D'Onofrio), and all undergo hell under the tutelage of Drill Sergeant Hartmann (Lee Ermey) - Gomer in particular, who eventually becomes a Section 8 candidate and who on "graduation" night after learning of his posting to the infantry completely loses it.

    Cowboy gets posted, like nearly all the platoon, to infantry whilst Joker gets posted to journalism, and they go their separate ways. Cowboy heads off to the real s***-fight that was Vietnam whilst Joker does the usual behind the lines stuff of journalists, before undergoing mild combat at Da Nang. He gets an assignment to go up front with the grunts and with Rafter Man (Kevyn Major Howard) in tow heads off and teams up again with Cowboy in combat at Hue City.

    Whilst it has to be said that this is not an especially original story - indeed the earlier portions reminded me of a serious version of Stripes - the way in which Stanley Kubrick has brought the story to the screen is. I suppose like many my idea of Kubrick is very much 2001: A Space Odyssey, but as you come to grips with his quite wide ranging films, there is no doubt that you can see the threads of quality film making linking them all to some extent. Whilst this is a hardly stellar cast, he has cajoled out of them quite superb performances that give the film its very strong character. The little attention to detail that seems to mark a Stanley Kubrick film is what grabs me here: almost the total lack of a music soundtrack, the shot of the barrack lights flickering into life, the use of the camera crew taking shots of resting troops as the battle rages on, the uneasiness of the troops as they are interviewed by the camera crew. These little things really help make this a very powerful look at the Vietnam War.

    Some have deigned to proclaim this the greatest war film ever made, but I would surely disagree with them on that point. I can easily name a half dozen war films that leave this for dead, not the least of which is the harrowing Apocalypse Now, but this is certainly a good war film. And unlike the earlier release, it has been given a transfer more deserving of film.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    As part of the much-touted Stanley Kubrick Collection, boasting digital restoration and remastering, it was going to be interesting to see where this one fell in terms of quality. Whilst there are undeniable highlights in the quality of other DVDs in the collection, notably 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are equally some instances where the remastering has not been so beneficial. Well, I am very pleased to report that in general this is a significantly improved effort over the now-withdrawn earlier release.

    In common with many other films in Stanley Kubrick's métier, the transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 as demanded by the man himself for home video releases. As a result it is not 16x9 enhanced. The question is of course whether or not this is a Full Frame format or whether it is a dreaded Pan and Scan abomination. Whilst I have no definitive proof myself, I am suspecting that the format is indeed Full Frame, as Stanley Kubrick is pretty well renowned for shooting his films in such a way as to permit Full Frame formatting, even though the theatrical release might be in the widescreen format demanded by modern film goers. Certainly the transfer "looks right", with no odd left or right chopping off indicated and with plenty of top and bottom information available.

    In comparison to the original transfer, which I thought was sharp with some nice definition, this is a significantly improved looking transfer with sharpness being noticeably improved. As a result there is a ton of detail here, especially once we get away from the rather spartan confines of the barracks. The moderate problem with grain in the original transfer has been to a large extent alleviated and there are only a few passages where there is any really noticeable grain. Naturally the image still has a very slightly grainy look at times, but that does not detract from the film at all. Shadow detail is also slightly improved, but still remains little better than good. There is no real problem with the clarity here, and there is no indication of any low level noise in the transfer.

    The big change in the transfer is how much better the colours come up here. Whilst they still have the occasional muted look, there is far more brightness and vibrancy here. This is noticeable in two places in particular: the sunset lit obstacle course around the 8:00 mark and during the first marching drill just before then. The orange colour of the sunset has a magnificent depth of colour and a vivacity that makes the picture just jump off the screen. It looks positively gorgeous. Similarly, during the first marching drill, the green of the lawns alongside the road are beautifully vibrant and leave the somewhat bland look of the original transfer for dead. This really is a gorgeous looking transfer, with some stunning colour even during the Hue City sequences with the flame and smoke billowing. There are no problems with oversaturation of colours, and nothing at all in the way of colour bleed either.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are some film-to-video artefacts in the form of aliasing or shimmer which get a little noticeable at times. None of them is really that bad but they all seem to be little things that catch the eye: the bed rails in the barracks, the rope at the passing out parade, the gun belts, and the like. Small enough stuff, but just the wrong side of being completely ignorable. The big improvement here is the cleaning up of the image and this effort really is devoid of any substantial film artefacts.

    This is a RSDL formatted disc, with the layer change coming in exactly the same place as in the original transfer - although the timing here is a second later at 76:31. It is a good one in that it comes at the end of the scene whilst there is some silence, and even though is is noticeable, it is not disruptive to the film.

    There is a decent selection of subtitles on the DVD and the English efforts are quite good even though they do miss just a bit too much stuff from the dialogue, albeit nothing really that essential.

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

Audio

    The sprucing up of the transfer extends to the audio side of things too, where we get a full Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. A pity that it is not something with a little more oomph to it. There are three soundtracks on the DVD, all of which are Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks: English, French and Italian. I listened to the English default.

    The dialogue was clear and generally easy to understand throughout. There did not appear to be any audio sync problems with the transfer.

    The almost non-existent score comprises original music from Abigail Mead, but really the soundtrack is superfluous to the film, and intentionally so I would suspect. There are a few popular songs of the era thrown in set the musical tone of the period.

    The remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is just a tad disappointing. I would have thought that when it got the chance, seeing that this is a war film, that it would have added somewhat more bite to the film than it does. Rather than exploding shells sounding, and feeling, like exploding shells, they seem to have all the presence of exploding squibs. Planes and choppers flying overhead are given no rear to front presence in flight, and the whole effect is somewhat dull rather than exciting. Maybe we have been spoilt by the likes of Saving Private Ryan as far as sound in war films is concerned, but this needed a lot more presence to it. Okay, it is still better than the mono sound afforded the original release, but was there no way we could not have gotten something with more surround presence and more bass usage? Both are sadly lacking in my view. An underwhelming effort indeed.



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

Extras

    Well everything else has been nicely spruced up for this release, so what the heck happened with the extras? It is exactly the same as the original release. Not really good stuff from Warners, as there surely is no reason why some of those involved could not have been brought together for a retrospective look at the making of the film.

Menu

    Static with only modest main menu audio enhancement, they are nothing much to write home about at all.

Theatrical Trailer (1:27)

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, this is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Nothing really memorable here at all, other than it does show how much better the film looks compared to what it could have looked like.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    As far as we are able to ascertain, there are no significant differences between the Region 1 and Region 4 versions of the DVD.

Summary

    Full Metal Jacket remains the best example of a Vietnam War film yet available in Region 4, but that may not be for long. Despite the significant improvements in the video transfer, the presentation still leaves a little to be desired both from an audio point of view and an extras point of view. Still, if you have the original release you might find the improvements in the video department sufficient to warrant upgrading. As far those that don't have the film? A qualified recommendation.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (Biological imperfection run amok)
Sunday, October 07, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-515, using S-Video output
DisplaySony Trinitron Wega (80cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationYamaha RXV-795
SpeakersEnergy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL

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