Reviews

Gladiator Blu-ray Disc Review

By brenden ⋅ September 8, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

GLADIATOR (2000, Blu-ray released September 1, 2009 - MSRP $39.99)

Holy crap, this Gladiator Blu-ray nonsense has been burning up the internets for the last couple of weeks! Have you heard it? If you believe the hype, you’ll be suffering under the delusion that this disc is the foulest thing to ever ship to your local Best Buy. That it’s damn-near unwatchable. That you might as well just stick with your old DVD copy of the film. Well, I’m here to tell you to ignore the noise and the naysayers. The Gladiator Blu-ray is a truly great, complete and thoroughly enjoyable package…that probably could have had a better transfer. But hell, nobody’s perfect, right?

Here’s the deal - Gladiator was unleashed into shops this past Tuesday, September 1st as one of the first of Paramount’s new line of premium Blu-ray discs - the Sapphire Series. A lucky few souls, however were able to get their dirty mitts on it early and, upon some heavy scrutiny, decided they WERE NOT entertained and decided to rip the disc (and Paramount) a new a-hole online. Word got out that that the Gladiator Blu-ray was not all that it was cracked up to be and warnings were issued for consumers to avoid it. After receiving my review copy and giving it a thorough once-over I can happily report that my retina are intact. No burn-holes in my eyeballs. The disc is fine. It looks good! But I guess that’s where the problem lies. Under this new Sapphire banner and the claim of digital perfection, Gladiator needs to look BETTER than good on Blu-ray.

Let me just say this. If your viewing area is less than 50″ diagonal, you’ll never notice the haloing, the edge enhancement, the digital-noise-reduction or general softness of the Gladiator transfer. In fact, the disc will most likely look great on your screen. Even on my 110″ projection screen, I can easily say that this is the best Gladiator has ever looked in my home. The Blu-ray bests the DVD in every way. But it should have been better. The very fact that it sports the “Sapphire” label suggests as much. And I’m sure Universal could have delivered better. According to Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits, it’s Universal who control the Gladiator assets for Dreamworks and would therefore be responsible for delivering Paramount the video transfer to create the Blu-ray. From the looks of it, they simply handed over the old sub-par transfer from the 2000 DVD to be re-used, instead of creating a new, more modern one, as is commonly done for the best HD discs today. It’s a shame but it’s not the end of the world. Like I said, I’ve never seen Gladiator look this good on my display. And I’ve watched both my theatrical cut and extended DVDs more than once over the years!

Aside from the video quality, this Blu-ray is bananas! Oh wait…should I cover the film itself? Do you need me to review the movie? Um…Okay…RIDLEY SCOTT!!! ANCIENT ROME!!! INCREDIBLE CINEMATOGRAPHY!!! FANTASTIC SCORE BY HANS ZIMMER AND LISA GERRARD!!! GREAT CAST!!! LAST FILM OF OLIVER REED!!! OSCAR WINNER FOR BEST PICTURE!!! …

And the story is pretty all right too…

Okay. On with the disc review. It looks good, sounds like a million bucks (perfect 5.1 DTS-HD track!) and is packed to the gills with extra features, not least of which is the ability to watch either the theatrical cut OR the extended cut of the film, through seamless branching. Fantastic! Once you’ve checked out both versions of Gladiator, listened to both excellent Ridley Scott commentary tracks (one technical with cinematographer John Mathieson and editor Pietro Scalia, the other more of a thrill ride with star Russel Crowe) and messed around with the Scrolls of Knowledge and/or the needless Visions from Elysium: Topic Portal on the first disc you’re ready to venture into disc two and all of its Charles de Lauzirika (longtime Ridley Scott DVD producer) awesomeness!

I’m not going to list all of the bonus features on disc two of the Gladiator set. They’re voluminous! Read all about them in our previous post here. I will say, however, that it is comprehensive and that you better set a lot of hours aside to wade through it all. It’s the same stuff that we’ve already seen on previous DVD editions, collected together this time onto one disc. Excellent stuff. The 197 minute Strength and Honor: Creating the World of ‘Gladiator’ documentary is worth the price of the Blu-ray alone.

Tags: Braveheart, Forest Gump, Gladiator, Mel Gibson, Paramount, Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks