RED HEAT (1988) (Lionsgate 4K UHD Review)

RED HEAT (1988)

Label: Lionsgate
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R
Duration: 104 Minutes
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: HDR, Dolby Vision, 2160p UltraHD & 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Walter Hill
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, Peter Boyle, Ed O’Ross, Laurence Fishburne, Gina Gershon, Brion James       

Walter Hill's East meets West buddy-cop actioner Red Heat (1988) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi has never been a film that got me particularly excited. It's always been a fairly lukewarm buddy-cop film that paled in comparison to Walter Hill's earlier and more superior 48 Hours (1982).

The story involves a stereotypically
emotionless Russian cop named Ivan Danko (Schwarzenegger, Terminator) who has been assigned by his superiors to travel to Chicago and apprehend notorious Russian drug-kingpin Viktor Rostavili (Ed O'Ross, The Hidden) who killed Danko's partner and then fled to the United States. Arriving in Chicago Danko is partnered-up with a loud-mouthed Chicago cop named Art Ridzik (James Belushi, Thief). The pair begin tracking the drug-kingpin while trading insults, it's the usual buddy-cop sorta thing filtered through the then current East meets West Glasnost cultural exchange, and it's a decent enough watch, but it's no great shakes either, and not anywhere near the top of the list of my favorite films from either star Schwarzenegger or director Walter Hill. 

i think my lack of enthusiasm for this really comes down to three things: First, the film is very by-the-numbers and doesn't offer anything new to the buddy-cop genre. Second, there's zero chemistry between Schwarzenegger and Belushi, I think Arnold is a solid communist straight-man here but Belushi blow-hard cop is just obnoxious to the point of distraction. Three, and closely related to the former, I have never found James Belushi funny in any way whatsoever in any film. He has always been the not-as-funny younger brother of the legendarily hilarious John Belushi (Neighbors), and that's probably an unfair comparison it's how I feel about the guy, he's just not a funny, what he seems to think is comic timing and delivery is just being loud and obnoxious, but it's so tiresome.

Audio/Video: Red Heat (1988) arrives on 4K UltraHD+Blu-ray+Digital combo from Lionsgate framed in 2160p and 1080p HD framed in the original 1.85:1 widescreen. There's no information about this being a new scan or what the source is but it looks very good, an impressive upgrade over the previous Blu-ray from Lionsgate. The new HDR and Dolby Vision color-grading offers a few dramatic differences over the past edition, colors are slightly warmer and more saturated, the blacks are deeper with more defined shadow detail, and white are noticeably brighter. The source elements are in great shape, I didn't notice any blemishes along the way, and there's a thin sheen of film grain throughout that looks natural. With that said I don't think that this presentation is gonna be a stunner of a 4K UHD, there's a lot of filtered lensing and scenes hazy with smoke and steam that sap the image of crispness in certain scenes, but in others there's impressive depth and clarity previously unseen on past home video releases. The screenshots in this review are sourced from the accompanying Blu-ray, not the UHD.

Audio on both discs comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. This is likely the same 5.1 that accompanied the previous Blu-ray release, no Atmos upgrade for this buddy-cop film. However, the existing 5.1 is decent with good use of the surrounds, dialogue is crisp and clean and the very 80's core from James Horner (Deadly Blessing) has some nice life in the mix. 

Onto the extras we get the archival stuff from the previous Blu-ray release plus a pair of new ones, though the new stuff is mostly fluff, including a 15-min Schwarzenegger
career retrospective/appreciation featuring Edward Pressman and Peter Hyams among others discussing working with the star, but no appearance from the star. There's also a 10-min discussion with Dave Saunders, author of 'Arnold Schwarzenegger And The Movies' who attempts to place some unnecessary political context onto the film. 

The 2-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray release arrives in a black eco-cutout keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. Inside you will find the discs and a digital HD copy of the film. The accompanying Blu-ray represents the new transfer and not just Lionsgate repackaging the previous release, which I always appreciate. 

Special Features (UHD and Blu-ray): 
- Arnold Schwarzenegger – The Man Who Raised Hollywood (15 min) 
- Political Context of Red Heat (10 min) 
- East Meets West (10 min) 
- A Stunt Man for All Seasons (12 min) 
- I’m Not Russian, But I Play One on TV (5 min) 
- Making of Red Heat (18 min) 
- Original Trailer (2 min) 

Red Heat (1988) might struggle to impress as an 80's buddy-cop film but with Walter Hill in the director's seat it's a well made film with some good suspense and exciting action set-pieces including terrific game of chicken between a pair of passenger buses that culminates with a train crash and some gunplay, so it's at least entertaining. The film also has a great supporting cast that includes Peter Boyle (Where The Buffalo Roam) and Laurence 'Larry' Fishburne (The Matrix) as Chicago cops and sexy Gina Gershon (Bound) as Rostavili's American wife, plus Ed O'Ross is terrific as the villainous baddie, and Brion James (Red Scorpion) shows up for a brief scene as a scumbag. The new 4K UltraHD is a solid upgrade with over an hour's worth of extras, definitely worth picking up for the right price, and it's currently under $20 on amazon right now. 

THE MATRIX (1999) (4K UltraHD Review)

THE MATRIX (1999)

Label: Warner Bros. Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 136 Minutes
Audio: Dolby Atmos 5.1, Dolby Digital Surround 5.1, with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: The Wachowskis
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano

I remember walking out of the cinema in 1999 after taking in The Matrix and being all like "whoa!", my mind was properly blown by the kung-fu sci-fi actioner, the story of a computer programmer Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves, River's Edge) who also goes by the hacker handle "Neo". As the story unfolds he learns that his perceived reality is really an elaborate virtual simulation created by intelligent machines that have enslaved mankind for hundred of years at this point, having placed all of humanity into fluid-filled pods, immersed in a false digital reality, all the while feeding off of their warmth and electrical activity, effectively turning people into the batteries that power this dystopian future-world while humans believe that their virtual prison is a true reality.

The movie opens with in very noir scenario with the character Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss, Fido) being pursued by police, she's cornered in a room at gunpoint when the film kicks into reality-bending awesomeness as she runs up a wall and the camera does a full 360 degree turn around her as she whoops some serious ass, defying gravity with a kinetic blend of kung-fu and black leather-clad cyberpunk aesthetics. Trinity later makes contact with Neo inviting him to a meet with the resistance leader Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn, John Wick: Chapter 2), who gives him a choice, take the blue pill and remain in his current reality, or take the red pill and have the veil lifted from his eyes. He chooses the red pill and finds his perceived reality literally melting away before his eyes, waking up naked in a goo-filled pod where he basically flushed down the drain by the machines, where he is picked-up by Morpheus in a hovercraft vehicle named the Nebuchadnezzar. Once on-board he is introduced to the rest of the resistance fighters who have aligned themselves with Morpheus, we have Cypher (Joe Pantoliano, Memento), brothers Dozer (Marcus Chong, The Crow: Wicked Prayer) and Tank (Anthony Ray Parker, Dead Air), Apoc (Julian Arahanga, Once We Were Warriors), Switch (Belinda McClory, Turkey Shoot) and Mouse (Matt Doran, The Thin Red Line). Once they get Neo up to speed he learns of the intelligent machine uprising of the 21st century, of how machine rose up against the humans and enslaved them in the Matrix, pacifying their minds with the illusion of reality, and of how there are freed humans living in a secret city called Zion, and how the Matrix is protected by sentient programs called Agents who manifest as C.I.A. looking spooks in suits, lead by Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings) as Agent Smith. 

Neo is trained in the ways of the Matrix, taught that his strength and skill inside the Matrix world are only limited by his imagination and determination, and niftily he can learn kung-fu and martial arts by simply downloading them directly into his brain through a port created by the machines, leading to a fantastic dojo fight sequence with Morpheus, one of the early highlights of the film, as Morpheus presses him to go beyond his perceived limits while inside the Matrix. . 

The action in this one comes fast and furious, plenty of cyber-kinetic kung-fu action rolled into the heady philosophical mind-fucking, with Neo and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar re-entering the Matrix and facing off against the dreaded agents while also facing real world threats like the squid-like machine known as Sentinels who hunt the freed humans. Also mixed into this is a budding love story between Neo and Trinity, plus a Christ-like prophecy with Morpheus believing Neo to be the "chosen one" who will lead to the destruction of the Matrix once and for all.

This was mega-hit right out of the gate from what I remember, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box-office, inspiring loads of action and sci-fi films in it's wake, including two sequels of it's own. The kinetic kung-fu action and slick cyberpunk visuals - including "bullet time" - have been aped and re-used ad nauseum since it was revealed here, it was certainly a ground-breaking movie, though the cyberpunk, mind-bending sci-fi and dystopian elements were seen previously in films like Dark City (1998) and Strange Days (1995), but this is the one that captured movie goers attentions the most, it expanded on and perfected what those films hinted at. 

Audio/Video: The Matrix (1999) arrives on 3-disc Blu-ray/4K UltraHD + Digital from Warner Home Entertainment with a new 4K transfer from the original camera negative, supervised by the film’s director of photography, Bill Pope (Baby Driver) framed in 2160p HD Widescreen (2.39:1), and the results are potent. The image has a pleasing layer of film grain, it's crisp and finely detailed with facial details and textures coming through as never before, this is a very pleasing upgrade in fine detail and texture. Color grading is notably different than past editions have been, the somewhat overwhelming green hue has been toned down, the skin tones look more natural as a result, but the new color-grading isn't perfect in my eyes, it fluctuates quite a bit, and some of the whites do seem slightly blown in certain scenes, but overall I find this to be a nice upgrade that brought me lots of enjoyment.

Onto the audio, we get choice of Dolby Atmos or Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes, strangely the lossy Dolby Digital is the default audio option, with optional English (and many other languages) subtitles. The audio presentation for the Matrix has always been fantastic, from the cinema to the first DVD and onto the previous Blu-rays, but this new 4K presentation includes a new Dolby Atmos track, which is also included on the Blu-ray, that is simply stunning, the bass rumbles deeply, scenes of bullet-fire and breaking glass come through crispy and powerfully, everything is nicely balanced with the pulsing score pounding away, it's truly an ear-gasm of sound. 

Onto the extras we get what looks to be everything from the past releases ported over, with the 4K disc and Blu-ray containing the feature films plus a written introduction from the Wachowskis, and the four audio commentaries which includes a critic's commentary, a philosophers commentary, cast and crew and one from the composer, the highlight is the philosopher's commentary, it adds a lot to the viewing experience. Disc one also includes the In-Movie Experience which features commentary and video interviews that pop-up during playback. A second Blu-ray contains the rest of the extensive special features which are quite good, it's been years since I re-watched any of them, so it was a fun revisit. 

This 4K release comes housed in a black 4K keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the white rabbit, which I'm not too keen on, but it does include a slipcover with a slightly more attractive artwork, but not by much. I think my favorite artwork for the original Matrix release was the Best Buy exclusive Steelbook with the pod artwork, I would have loved that for this release. 

Special Features:
- Written Introduction by the Wachowskis
- “Philosopher” Commentary by Dr. Cornel West and Ken Wilbur
- “Critics” Commentary by Todd McCarthy, John Powers and David Thomson
- “Cast and Crew” Commentary by Carrie-Anne Moss, Zach Staenberg and John Gaeta
- “Composer” Commentary by Don Davis with Music Only Track
- The Matrix Revisited (123 min)
- The Music Revisited (
- Behind the Matrix (33 min)
- Follow the White Rabbit (23 min)
- Take the Red Pill (18 min)
- Marilyn Manson “Rock is Dead” Music Video (3 min)
- Teaser Trailer (1 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
- TV Spots (4 min)

The Matrix (1999) still looks great some twenty years later, though some of the leather-clad visuals haven't exactly aged well in my opinion, and the digital Sentinels and scenes of the digitally created Nebuchadnezzar cruising through the utility tunnels of the future stand out as not being seamless integrated, especially with this 4K presentation, but otherwise I'm still impressed by the production design and detail that went into this one. The fight-sequences are outstanding and well shot, the energy and momentum combined with the gravity defying special effects in 4K are still mesmerizing,

This release was sent by Warner Bros. for review on the site, but this did not effect the review one way or the other, the review is my own. 

DEATH WISH II (1982)/DEATH WISH III (1985) (Umbrella Blu-ray Review)

DEATH WISH II (1982)/DEATH WISH III (1985) 
A Cannon Classics Double Feature 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R/18+
Duration: 91 Minutes/92 Minutes 
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Michael Winner 
Cast: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Laurence Fishburne, Vincent Gardenia, Martin Balsam, E. Lamont Johnson, Silvana Gallardo,Kevyn Major Howard, Thomas E. Duffy, Stuart K. Robinson, Robin Sherwood

DEATH WISH II (1982) (92 min) 
Eight years after the original Death Wish (1974) Charles Bronson (The White Buffalo) returned to the role of NYC vigilante Paul Kersey, and as you might expect, producers Golan and Globus along with director Michael Winner (The Mechanic), gave the film a trashy 80s sheen, making it a right slice of 80s era Cannon-fodder, turning the sequel to the vigilante classic into an over-the-top slice of violence and sleaze, amping up the misogyny to the nth degree and laying on the violence with a thick and bloody brush. 

The film picks up with Kersey (Bronson) having relocated from NYC to to sunny Los Angeles after the event of the first film, beginning life anew with his daughter Carol (Robin Sherwood, Tourist Trap) who is now confined to a mental institution following the traumatic events of the first movie, she having watched her mother killed and then raped by her killers scarred her deeply. Paul is still working as an architect, he has a new girlfriend named Jeri, played by his real wife Jill Ireland, who is a radio news reporter. Together they attend a street fair along with his fragile-minded daughter, who they've checked out of the asylum for a day of fun. 

While waiting in line to buy some ice cream Paul is targeted by a group of punks who lift his wallet, he chases them down and beats a thug named Jiver (Stuart K. Robinson, Better Off Dead) pretty badly, but ends up letting him go when it turns out he doesn't have the wallet. However, the other thugs now have his wallet with his home address and they head to his home for some sweet revenge. There they encounter his housekeeper Rosario (Silvana Gallardo) home alone, they assault and rape her, and as this is the unrated director's cut of the film it goes on for a bit, it's vile, humiliating and overstays it's welcome by a few minutes, managing to get pretty sleazy, with the men squealing with delight as they run a train on the helpless woman, the assault ends with her getting a crowbar to the skull, killing her. 

Paul arrives home later that night with his daughter and walks into the horrific scene, he's attacked by the thugs who've been waiting for him, he's knocked unconscious and the thugs make off with his daughter, taking her back to their lair where they rape her. The scene is weird, if it had different music the sex would almost seem consensual, that Winner was a creep, but she fights back and runs away, leaping out a window only to be impaled on a spiked iron fence, dying immediately. 

Of course her death inspires the grieving, but always stone-faced, Kersey to go resort to his vigilante ways, going after the gang with a vengeance, taking out the cartoonish gang in a series of bloody and violent vignettes, complete with the requisite one-liners that Bronson delivers with cold menace, my favorite being when he catches up the thug named Stomper (Kevyn Major Howard, Full Metal Jacket), holding him at gunpoint Kersey aks "Do you believe in Jesus?", responding that he does, Kersey says "Well then, you're going to be with him." before blasting him. One of the gang members named Nirvana (Thomas F. Duffy, Super 8)is later apprehended while high on PCP, found unfit to go to jail they send him to the asylum, Kersey disguises himself as a doc and tracks Nirvana down at the asylum where he has his vengeance, electrocuting the killer with the implicit help of an orderly, played by Charles Cyphers (Assault on Precinct 13). 

The movie is a fairly straight-forward rehash of the original film and as such is predictable and none too enthralling, just amped up with violence and more skin-crawling rape, but if you're a fan of badass Bronson and love cheap, exploitative violence there's plenty here to enjoy, also be on the lookout for a very young Laurence Fishburne (Event Horizon) as one of the gang members named Cutter, wearing pink new wave glasses, who gets shot in the face right through his 80s boom box. Horror fans will also get a hoot spotting Anthony Franciosa of Argento's Tenebre (1982) in the film as the L.A. police commisioner! 

As this is the unrated director's cut it runs about a few minutes longer than the U.S. R-rated theatrical cut, with some extended rape scenes, which don't amount to much in the grand scheme of things but it's here for your pervy eyes to view in all its trashy glory. Also noteworthy is a screaming guitar and synth driven score from Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page - it's not his best work but it's just fine for this slice of street-cleaning trash.    

DEATH WISH III (1985) (91 min) 
Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) arrives back in New York City to visit an old Korean war buddy named Charlie (Francis Drake), only to find his friend has just been attacked by some neighborhood punks, his friend dies in front of his very eyes, which furthers my belief that Paul Kersey is perhaps one of the most cursed men in all of cinema, to just know his name seems to take years off your life expectancy! Once more the stone-faced avenger must face off against a gang of ridiculous looking punkers, but not before he is detained after Charlie's death by the cops, where the police chief Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter, Cujo) recognizes him as the vigilante from the first film, only to release him back into the wilds of the Bronx, with the edict that he works for him, hoping to get an assist from the vigilante to clean-up the violent streets of the Bronx.  

Paul moves into Charlie's apartment and helps the immigrant and senior citizen who live in the slum fight against the horde of violent criminals that infest the neighborhood like cockroaches.  He is befriended by WWII vet Bennet Cross (Martin Balsam, Psycho), and there's also a doomed love interest, a public defender named Kathryn Davis (Deborah Raffin, The Sentinel) who winds up dying in a fiery car explosion, further fueling Kersey's desire for vengeance. 

This one takes up the cartoonish violence a notch while toning down the rape just a tad, but it's a Michael winner film so yeah there's a rape. The gang is lead by ginger nut job Manny (Gavin O'Herlihy, The Descent: Part 2) who proves to be the worst of the scumbags, and he gets an appropriately explosive and utterly overkill demise in the film, the final thirty-minutes of this one is an all-out war zone with the gangs going up against the well-armed citizens of the neighborhood, it's hard not to love it, even though it is nutso.  

By this point in his career Bronson was waning in enthusiasm and his star had fallen quite a bit, hence the work with Cannon Films, and he seems more detached than the first sequel, the driving force of the film seems to be his increasingly cartoonish arsenal, with a new weaponry like an enormous .475 Wildey Magnum hand cannon, a Browning M1919 .30-caliber machine gun and a rocket launcher which conveniently arrives just in the nick of time through mail-order! Super silly stuff, but if you're a fan of badass Bronson and cartoonish urban vigilantism there's plenty of fun to be had with Death wish III. 

Audio/Video: Both films arrive on Blu-ray from Australia's Umbrella Entertainment with 1080p HD presentations framed in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1). These are solid looking HD transfers with excellent color reproduction and skin tones, the grain can be a bit chunky on Death Wish 2 at times but overall these are pleasing, they're not reference quality, but they're pleasing and a nice upgrade from my DVD versions.  Both film share space on a region-free BD50 disc along with a host of extras, plus a bonus DVD with three versions of Death wish 2; the theatrical cut in anamorphic widescreen and the TV cut and the Greek VHS version, both in poor VHS quality full frame presentations. Audio is advertised as DTS-HD MA Mono but we only get a lossy Dolby Digital mono 2.0 track for both films, they're clean and well-mixed, but a lossless option would have been nice, optional English subtitles are provided.  

As for the extras we get quite a few beginning with as assortment of trailers and TV spots for each film, a nearly hour-long archival making-of featurette with behind the scenes footage of Death Wish 3, Runaway Train and House, there are a lot of cool behind-the-scenes stuff and interviews, narrated by actor Katt Williams (House, Carrie), it's a nice Cannon Films focused extra. 

There are also a whopping 100 minutes of extended interviews from Mark Hartley's Cannon doc Electric Boogaloo with actors Alex Winter, Robin Sherwood, screenwriter David Engelbach, and Todd Roberts, son of producer Bobby Roberts. The Winters interview is particularly fun and scathing, calling the film a "dog pile of shit", how he got out of filming a rape scene, pointing out what an unlikable guy Winner was, and commenting on Bronson and what a class act he was, though clearly just doing the picture for money.  There's also an Easter Egg on the Blu-ray disc, a collection of scenes from the Australian VHS version not found on the theatrical cut of the film, a lot of these are scenes between Kersey and Inspector Richard Shriker (Ed Lauter) at the police station and some extended shootout sequences. Notably, while the rest of the disc seems to be region-free this extras would only play on my region-free player and not on the region-A player. There's also a DVD disc featuring three versions of Death Wish 2, the theatrical cut and the Greek VHS and TV cut of the film, each with additional scenes not in the unrated director's cut. All the versions of Death Wish 2 feature notes by Paul Talbot, author of 'Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films', speaking to the various incarnations of the film and what's exclusive or unique about each.

Reversible Artwork

This release comes from Umbrella Entertainment in a thick-style Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork, the main option is a new custom artwork from the folks at Umbrella, on the reverse is a wrap featuring the original one-sheets for both films. The Blu-ray disc sports the Death wish 2/Death wish 3 artwork, while the bonus DVD disc features the Death Wish III one-sheet artwork. 

Special Features: 

DISC 1 (Blu-ray) 
- DEATH WISH 2: UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT (1982) (91 min) HD 
- Notes on the uncut version of Death Wish 2 by Paul Talbot, author of 'Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films' (Text Only) 
- DEATH WISH 3 (1985) (92 min) HD 
- Death Wish 2 Trailer (2 min) HD 
- Death Wish 2 TV Spot version 1 (28 sec) 
- Death Wish 2 TV Spot Version 2 (23 sec) 
- Death Wish 3 Trailer (2 min) HD 
- Death Wish 3 TV spot (29 sec) 
- Interviews with cast members Alex Winter, Robin Sherwood, screenwriter David Engelbach - and Todd Roberts, son of producer Bobby Roberts. (Extended interviews from Mark Hartley's ELECTRIC BOOGALOO)(100 min) HD 
- ACTION II: Making-of featurette with Behind the Scenes footage of Death Wish 3, Runaway Train and House (52 min) 
- Easter Egg: Death Wish III Extended and Deleted Scenes (6 min) 

DISC 2 (DVD)
- DEATH WISH 2: ORIGINAL THEATRICAL CUT (89 min) (Anamorphic Widescreen) 
-  Notes on the R-Rated version of Death Wish 2 by Paul Talbot, author of 'Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films' (Text Only) 
- DEATH WISH 2: TV CUT (94 min) (Full Frame) 
- Notes on the TV cut of Death Wish 2 by Paul Talbot, author of 'Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films' (Text Only) 
- DEATH WISH 2: GREEK VHS CUT (95 min) (Full Frame) 
- Notes on the Greek VHS release of Death Wish 2 by Paul Talbot, author of 'Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films' (Text Only)

Great to have the unrated version of the these Death Wish sequels on Blu-ray, the U.S. versions have been R-rated threadbare of extras, Umbrella rectify that this fantastic region-free double-feature of 80's badassery, loaded with extras and no less than four versions of the second entry. If you're a fan of the movies this is the one to own.