My
fondness for director Jim Henson’s LABYRINTH ($27), stretches
back to 1986 when I first saw the film during its theatrical run. Like THE
DARK CRYSTAL, Henson’s other notable movie venture outside of
Muppet-dom, LABYRINTH is a marvelous fantasy film that brings to
life a magical world of imagination. However, unlike THE DARK CRYSTAL,
LABYRINTH also features a number of human performers that interact
with the elaborate puppet characters that inhabit the film.
LABYRINTH
tells the story of a teenage girl named Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), who
lives in a world of make-believe, so she doesn’t have to deal with her
parents divorce, her new step mother or her baby brother Toby, whom she is
forced to baby sit. On one particular Saturday night, Toby won’t stop
crying, so Sarah makes a wish that the goblins will come and take the baby
away. However, when her wish does come true, she immediately regrets it
and makes a plea to Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie) to return her
brother. Jareth tells Sarah that her wish is not easily undone, but if she
wants her brother back, she will have to make her way through the
Labyrinth that surrounds his castle in the heart of the Goblin City. With
only thirteen hours to solve the ever-changing Labyrinth, Sarah encounters
a number of interesting creatures, some of which help her in her quest and
others that sabotage her efforts to get her baby brother back.
Columbia
TriStar Home Entertainment has made their Superbit DVD edition of LABYRINTH
available in a 2.35:1 wide screen presentation that has been enhanced for
16:9 displays. For the most part, this is a really wonderful looking
transfer that has been made even better by the extra bandwidth of the
Superbit process. On the negative side, the film element used for the
transfer does display some small blemishes and other anomalies, as well as
less than stellar special effects work that adds some printed in bits
of debris to the picture. However, on the positive side, the image appears
nicely crisp and offers a fine level of detail. Colors range from slightly
subdued to fairly vibrant, although they always appear clean and stable
throughout the presentation. Blacks are deep and inky, while the whites
appear crisp. Contrast is fairly smooth and shadow detail is on par for a
film from the mid-1980s. Digital compression artifacts are virtually
eliminated by the higher than usual data rate of the Superbit process.
Overall, this Superbit release is the best that LABYRINTH has ever
looked in the home venue.
LABYRINTH
is offered with 5.1 channel soundtracks in both the Dolby Digital and DTS
varieties. Even though both tracks are in the latest digital formats, they
do sound dated. Now I don't want to give the impression that the
soundtracks are bad, because this is certainly the best that LABYRINTH
has ever sounded in the home venue. However, it’s fairly obvious that
this soundtrack comes from the film's original Dolby Surround stems and
does not represent a track that has been re-mixed from the ground up. The
forward soundstage dominates the mix, with very little surround activity,
outside of ambient and musical fill. Fidelity is a bit limited at the top
and bottom, plus sounds lack the cleanness of definition found in latest
soundtrack mixes.
Trevor
Jones’ score, as well as David Bowie’s songs do sound nice, but not
quite as good as my soundtrack CD. Too bad, I had hoped that Bowie's
terrific song As The World Falls Down would have had a bit
more presence than it does here. Dialogue is always crisp and fully
understandable, although the voices lack a homogonous quality, as if they
were recorded in different same acoustical spaces. Differences between
Dolby Digital and DTS are completely negligible on this particular track
because of the limitations in the original source. Subtitles have been
provided on the DVD in English and Spanish. The basic interactive menus
offer access to the standard set up and scene selection features. No
supplements are provided on this Superbit title, since all of the storage
space on the DVD has been utilized to maximize the bit rate for the video
and audio.
LABYRINTH
is a charming fantasy film that I happen to like very much. The Superbit
process makes it look better and sound better than it has in the past,
although not to a degree that will inspire casual viewers who already own
the previous release to make an upgrade. On the other hand, die-hard fans
will probably want to add this second disc to their collections, while
keeping the original DVD for its supplemental content.
My
fondness for director Jim Henson’s LABYRINTH ($27), stretches
back to 1986 when I first saw the film during its theatrical run. Like THE
DARK CRYSTAL, Henson’s other notable movie venture outside of
Muppet-dom, LABYRINTH is a marvelous fantasy film that brings to
life a magical world of imagination. However, unlike THE DARK CRYSTAL,
LABYRINTH also features a number of human performers that interact
with the elaborate puppet characters that inhabit the film.
LABYRINTH
tells the story of a teenage girl named Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), who
lives in a world of make-believe, so she doesn’t have to deal with her
parents divorce, her new step mother or her baby brother Toby, whom she is
forced to baby sit. On one particular Saturday night, Toby won’t stop
crying, so Sarah makes a wish that the goblins will come and take the baby
away. However, when her wish does come true, she immediately regrets it
and makes a plea to Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie) to return her
brother. Jareth tells Sarah that her wish is not easily undone, but if she
wants her brother back, she will have to make her way through the
Labyrinth that surrounds his castle in the heart of the Goblin City. With
only thirteen hours to solve the ever-changing Labyrinth, Sarah encounters
a number of interesting creatures, some of which help her in her quest and
others that sabotage her efforts to get her baby brother back.
Columbia
TriStar Home Entertainment has made their Superbit DVD edition of LABYRINTH
available in a 2.35:1 wide screen presentation that has been enhanced for
16:9 displays. For the most part, this is a really wonderful looking
transfer that has been made even better by the extra bandwidth of the
Superbit process. On the negative side, the film element used for the
transfer does display some small blemishes and other anomalies, as well as
less than stellar special effects work that adds some printed in bits
of debris to the picture. However, on the positive side, the image appears
nicely crisp and offers a fine level of detail. Colors range from slightly
subdued to fairly vibrant, although they always appear clean and stable
throughout the presentation. Blacks are deep and inky, while the whites
appear crisp. Contrast is fairly smooth and shadow detail is on par for a
film from the mid-1980s. Digital compression artifacts are virtually
eliminated by the higher than usual data rate of the Superbit process.
Overall, this Superbit release is the best that LABYRINTH has ever
looked in the home venue.
LABYRINTH
is offered with 5.1 channel soundtracks in both the Dolby Digital and DTS
varieties. Even though both tracks are in the latest digital formats, they
do sound dated. Now I don't want to give the impression that the
soundtracks are bad, because this is certainly the best that LABYRINTH
has ever sounded in the home venue. However, it’s fairly obvious that
this soundtrack comes from the film's original Dolby Surround stems and
does not represent a track that has been re-mixed from the ground up. The
forward soundstage dominates the mix, with very little surround activity,
outside of ambient and musical fill. Fidelity is a bit limited at the top
and bottom, plus sounds lack the cleanness of definition found in latest
soundtrack mixes.
Trevor
Jones’ score, as well as David Bowie’s songs do sound nice, but not
quite as good as my soundtrack CD. Too bad, I had hoped that Bowie's
terrific song As The World Falls Down would have had a bit
more presence than it does here. Dialogue is always crisp and fully
understandable, although the voices lack a homogonous quality, as if they
were recorded in different same acoustical spaces. Differences between
Dolby Digital and DTS are completely negligible on this particular track
because of the limitations in the original source. Subtitles have been
provided on the DVD in English and Spanish. The basic interactive menus
offer access to the standard set up and scene selection features. No
supplements are provided on this Superbit title, since all of the storage
space on the DVD has been utilized to maximize the bit rate for the video
and audio.
LABYRINTH
is a charming fantasy film that I happen to like very much. The Superbit
process makes it look better and sound better than it has in the past,
although not to a degree that will inspire casual viewers who already own
the previous release to make an upgrade. On the other hand, die-hard fans
will probably want to add this second disc to their collections, while
keeping the original DVD for its supplemental content.
