Red Dragon

Posted May 23, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

After Will Graham (Norton) captured Hannibal Lecter (and almost lost his life by doing so), he retires. Until a new serial killer pops up and his former boss Jack Crawford (Keitel) comes to ask for his help. Graham decides to help Crawford but wants to stay low profile to not endanger himself. Of course that’s without taking into account the press who love nothing more than to tell everyone that the legendary detective who caught Lecter is again working and is helping to capture the so-called Toothfairy serial killer. When Graham gets blocked into his investigation, he turns to Lecter for help, but what he doesn’t know is that Lecter has contact with the toothfairy who actually adores Lecter.

Sound and Vision:
The image contains some small white dots here and there but overall it’s quite good with plenty of detail, no compression errors and sharp images.

The sound is excellent with good use of the surround speakers for music and effects

Extras:
The extras present on the Blu-ray are exactly the same as on the DVD. No need to get the Blu-ray for this unless you don’t have the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD yet.

Audio commentary track with Brett Ratner and writer Ted Dally after which composer Danny Elfman accompanies us in the second one where we only get to hear his music and himself.
A 14-minute promotional “Making of” and an interview with Anthony Hopkins. A featurette on the burning wheelchair and another one on the visual effects. The storyboard comparison shows us several scenes in split screen (comparison, remember ? ;p) and then we get to check out the video diary from the director which gives us loads of information on most aspects of the movie. The screentests feature shows us Dany Spinotti who tells us together with the director how they wanted to show certain scenes in a certain way. The Make-up featurette shows us how they created the mirror-eyes while real-life profiler John Douglas explains us how he got his job and what he has to do for a living in another short featurette. “The Leeds house crime scene” brings us to the crime scene from Red Dragon where we get to see how Ray Peavy of the LA homicide department advises the crew on how to do things to make it more real. Last up are 7 deleted scenes, 3 extended and 4 altered ones along with a couple of trailers a dvdrom feature and a Brett Ratner short movie.

Conclusion:
Michael Mann’s original Manhunter will remain better than its remake (Red Dragon) but that doesn’t mean this movie isn’t worth checking out. On the contrary; the huge amount of extras is very interesting and both image and sound quality are reasonably good. And don’t we just love Hopkins in the role of Hannibal The Cannibal ?

When comparing the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD with this Blu-ray release there’s little difference to be found. The image and sound are a bit better but that’s it.

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