Half Past Dead – Blu-ray Disc Review
August 3, 2008 – 9:20 AM --- by: Brendan SurplessTags: BD-Live, Bruce Weitz, Don Michael Paul, Ja Rule, Morris Chestnut, Richard Bremmer, Sony, Steven Seagal
has an average rating of 3.9 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
includes BD-Live & DVD ports
– 
– 2002
– 98 minutes
– Sony
Overall Verdict – For die-hard Seagal Fans Only
Buy it for $18.49 @ Amazon.com
— Review written by: Brendan Surpless —
The Movie Itself was directed by Don Michael Paul (known for “Who’s Your Caddy“). When Sasha Petrosevitch (Steven Seagal) is busted along with his partner Nick (Ja Rule), both are sent to Alcatraz prison. The only thing here is that Sasha is actually an undercover FBI Agent who doesn’t want to reveal to Nick the truth so he goes along with the story. When both arrive they learn that Lester McKenna (Bruce Weitz) is set to be the prison’s first execution after stealing over $200M. Obviously this wouldn’t be a movie without your requisite team of bad guys wanting to know where this money is. Enter Donny Johnson (Morris Chestnut) who descends on the prison in hopes of extracting the information from Lester. Will Lester find out the whereabouts of the money or will Lester go to the grave with the secret? What results is a movie that is poorly edited, terribly acted and has one too many cheap action sequences.
The movie just has way too many poorly choreographed fight sequences that seem like they took numerous takes to complete. The editing in these parts is sloppy at best. Even a viewer with the absolute worst eye sight can stare at the screen and notice how wacky the editing is. And let us not forget about the wooden acting. Seagal (a man who in his own right use to be enjoyable) is just getting way past his prime. He literally acts throughout the whole film like nothing worth any kind of emotion is every occurring. Yes I know that is Seagal’s trademark acting style but come on man at least crack a smile or frown. How difficult is that? And the rest of the cast from the highly forgettable Ja Rule who seemed like he was shooting a music video instead with his poses to Morris Chestnut who despite offering one or two okay shots just isn’t convincing at all in this villain role.
Out of the three Sony titles sitting on my desk (the other two “Maximum Risk” and “XXX:State of the Union“) I figured “Half Past Dead” would have the most promise as I’ve enjoyed other Seagal films. But in the end this is a completely forgettable movie that just has too many problems to ever, ever think it might be labeled as a decent movie.
Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-50 — 50 gigabyte Dual Layered Blu-ray Disc. Having been shot in 35mm this movie makes a somewhat decent transfer to hi-def. First colors are solid for the most part. The film tended to lean more toward darker colors (in particular blacks). I did notice right around the 1:10 mark where Sasha and Donny are fighting there was a few slight sequences where the print showed a bit of a black blip. Almost like kind of a drop out I suppose. Grain is present but is kept in check. I’m not sure if Sony used any type of DNR filter as this was my 1st viewing but never did the grain becoming overly abundant. More like pleasant film grain meant to accompany the image. There are only a few instances were the image detail is good enough for any type of 3-D “pop”. Certainly not the worst catalogue title I’ve seen but this could have been a lot better. “3 1/2 Star Rating“.
Audio Quality on this release is in English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. Containing a rather heavy rock/hip-hop soundtrack noticeably the LFE is quite solid here. LFE is most notable during any of the hip-hop songs which give us a deep, low bass that compliments the music. Something funny was that whenever the villains entered the screen there was this constant guitar riff as if to remind us who the villains were. Dynamics are good as well in particular during most of the gun battles. All the little effects ring and zip from left to right rear speaker in a manner that seems very fluid. Dialogue was intelligible and was easy to understand. All in all a pretty solid track that earns a “4-Star Rating“.
Bonus Materials are all presented in Standard Definition (480p) MPEG-2 video and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound except for the film’s theatrical trailer which is in High Definition using MPEG-2.
- Commentary with writer-director Don Michael Paul: The most interesting aspect of this commentary track was that Paul mentioned that he intended to make this movie quite sometime ago but it was delayed because of “The Rock“. Honestly though even if the movie were made that long ago I don’t think it would have been any better.
- “The Making of Half Past Dead”: Standard making of that doesn’t do much besides interviews and director comments.
- Deleted Scenes: Deleted for a reason folks.
- BD-Live is included on this release which allows users with a “Profile 2.0” Blu-ray Disc Player (such as the PS3) to access online content sometimes specific to the title and also feature trailers to current and upcoming Sony films in both HD (Hi-Def) and SD (Standard Def). This title will not go “BD-Live” (so-to-speak) until street date so I can’t tell you if this features any title specific content yet but I’ll be sure to update this after it has been released.
Overall, the bonus materials presented here are rather lackluster just like the film!
Blu-ray Disc packaging:
One Response to “Half Past Dead – Blu-ray Disc Review”
Rut Roh, I am getting this one in for review should be interestin =)
By Sam on Aug 3, 2008