Natural Born Killers – Blu-ray Disc Review
June 14, 2008 – 4:44 AM - Posted by: Justin SlussTags: Dolby TrueHD, Juliette Lewis, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Downey Jr., Rodney Dangerfield, Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones, Warner, Woody Harrelson
has an average rating of 6.9 on IMDb
1080p in VC-1 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1
are just ported over from the DVD(s)
– 
– 1994
– 118 minutes
– Warner
Buy it for $23.95 @ Amazon.com
— Review written by: Justin Sluss —
The Movie Itself was Directed by legend Oliver Stone and original story was written by (up-and-coming legend) Quentin Tarantino. One important note to previous owners of the DVD release(s) — This is the R Rated Theatrical cut of the film, not the “Director’s Cut” which had a runtime of 122 minutes (only 4 extra minutes). The story to this film tells that of a couple comparable to a modern-day “Bonnie & Clyde” by the names of “Mickey (played by Woody Harrelson) and “Mallory Knox” (played by Juliette Lewis). The only difference between our couple in Mr. Stone‘s film and the actual couple “Bonnie & Clyde” is that our couple does NOT rob banks. Instead “Mickey & Mallory” like to kill people for simply the pure enjoyment and nothing more. They meet when Mallory is eager to run away from her abusive home that included her molesting father “Ed Wilson” (played by the late Rodney Dangerfield).
One day she meets the meat man, delivering meat — like you’d expect to see, that’s totally common. The meat man is named “Mickey Knox.” He’s immediately stricken by desire for Mallory. They run off and start their first killing spree, during which they eventually get separated for a bit when Mallory goes back to stay with her family. That’s where our anti-hero Mickey Knox comes to the rescue and helps his beloved Mallory kill her father first, mother second and then tell Mallory‘s little brother that “you’re free now.” They proceed to drive off into the various different scenery we’re given throughout and along the way committing murders for the pure joy of killing. They decide one day to have an unofficial wedding ceremony and are married. That was the only day they didn’t kill anyone — well actually they did, they just broke their own rules is all.
Fast forward a couple dozen murders later and things are getting pretty bad for our “killer couple” when they run out of gas, getting in turn stranded in out in the middle of the desert. Long story short (without spoilers) — they meet this Indian, they get bit by snakes and things turn incredibly wrong. While all this is going on we have a new character in the story. A reporter of sorts by the name of “Wayne Gale” (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) who hosts a Television program called “America’s Maniacs” and has been covering the couple’s killing spree.
Things make a turn for the worse (as they always seem to) for this murderous couple and they end up in the big house — jail, the joint, the slammer, prison, you get the picture. The man who puts them there is a crooked cop named “Jack Scagnetti” (played by Tom Sizemore). Once they couple is incarcerated they find themselves with yet another new enemy. The warden of this prison, “Dwight McClusky” (played by Tommy Lee Jones). Let’s just say that if you love the cast, you love Oliver Stone‘s past work and haven’t seen this film — give it a chance on Blu-ray!
Video Quality on this release is 1080p in VC-1 on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte Dual-Layered Blu-ray Disc). One important note going into this — Director Oliver Stone shot this film on a large variety of different cameras and film negatives. He used every type of camera he could from 8mm, 16mm, traditional 35mm to even Betamax for the news segments. Now with that in mind know that you are NOT going to see a consistent clarity or amount of film grain throughout this High Definition presentation. Don’t let this fool you into thinking that in turn, you’re seeing a bad transfer because it’s NOT a bad transfer.
Although there are some slight visual issues that I could only determine to be film noise on a certain type of film transfered to the original 35mm print of this — most likely used. It’s not really the most bothersome thing in the world but it just seems to hurt the presentation I thought personally, enough for me to only give this a “4 Star Rating” overall for video quality. The film is 14 years old in fairness so I think that’s really not that bad especially if you reconsider the fact of how many formats filmmaker (Director) Oliver Stone had his camera guys shoot this. It looks better than you’d expect and holds good detail compared to the original DVD releases. I’d also like to add that Warner Brothers was not kind enough to supply me this. I had to go out and buy it myself. * hint * hint *
Audio Quality on this release is in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps. This honestly this always was a good 5.1 surround mix on past DVD release(s) and it still remains to “wow” me even to this date — especially in the new TrueHD High-Def sound format 5.1 mix. There is at times a really good real channel presence but it’s just not persistent and comes across “front heavy” a tad bit of the film — meaning that most the sound tends to come out of the 3 front channels (center, left, right). Not a whole lot of bass presence to really speak of here for as intense a film as this is you’d think it’d leave you shaken but safe to say this has JUST ENOUGH bass to it to get the job done.
This film always stood out to me in the euphoric sense that it had some awesome music on the Soundtrack, I will say that. Such musical artists as Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Nine Inch Nails were featured on the Soundtrack. This delivers dialogue almost 95% of the time very distinctively without being overpowered by the film’s music or sound effects but then again I think at times the dialogue is supposed to be a tad bit muffled out in fairness to the Director’s probable intentions. This earns itself a “4 Star Rating” for overall audio quality on this release. It does get the job done.
Bonus Materials are presented in Standard Definition (480p) using VC-1 for video and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo @192kbps sound.
- Audio Commentary by Director Oliver Stone is truly a treat to see ported over! I love this man’s filmmaking and his commentary tracks are always worth the listen in my opinion. This is a must have on this release and they did the right thing by including it. “Kudos” to Warner!
- Deleted Scenes with optional video introductions from Director Oliver Stone (24 minutes)
- Charlie Rose Interview (11 minutes) proves to be very much worth the watch as he (Stone) defends his film against the eager to listen Rose. Great stuff, fans of his film’s will enjoy this — regardless if it just is ported over from previous DVD release or not.
- Alternate Ending (3 minutes)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 minutes)
Overall, I mean okay, you know… I’m really happy they included all the basic DVD ported bonus materials — total plus — but you have to keep in mind that some real fans of the film were wanting some new High Definition exclusive Introduction and/or Interview with Oliver Stone or something or new for that matter period. I’ll admit I’m semi-happy with what I got here on the bonus materials considering for once I had to actually buy this title * hint * hint *
