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Bone Collector, The (HD DVD)
Universal // R // August 22, 2006 // Region 0
List Price: $29.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The extras on The Bone Collector frequently 
point out the filmmakers' slavish devotion to realism, and all of that time and energy has really paid off. The movie's about a serial killer cabbie who uses turn-of-the-century tools to slaughter his fares, littering these grisly scenes with obscure clues to his next murder. Former model-slash-police officer Amelia Donaghy (a then-unknown Angelina Jolie) uncovers the first body, savvy enough to (1) stand in the path of a train that's about to barrel over some evidence and (2) photograph a footprint (before rain can wash it away) with a disposable camera purchased by a terrified inner-city child witness who she gives a few bucks and sends to the drug store.
This deeply impresses quadroplegic author/former police head honcho Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), who's still on active duty despite not being able to move more than his mouth or an index finger for the past four years. Since Rhyme can't exactly step foot outside of his $2.3 million New York apartment that's overflowing with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical equipment and voice-activated computer gear, he instructs the trained professionals to keep back and let this busty, untested beat cop serve as his eyes and ears at each crime scene. Rhyme and Donaghy usually figure out the clues just in time to watch someone die, but then...:gasp!:...the masked killer snatches a little girl and some old guy. Oh, plug one of the city's most prominent businessmen in the head, roast his wife in an underground glorified rice steamer, feed a bloodied college student to rats, murder a cop on the streets of New York in cold blood, and...forget about her father or grandfather or whatever. The killer's snatched a kid, so he's really crossed the line! This sends the investigation into high gear,
distracting Donaghy and her more mobile comrades. Since neither of our heroes have encountered the masked killer up to this point and since one of the lead characters is all alone in his apartment and can't fight back, I'll leave it up to you to connect the climactic dots.
Director Phillip Noyce and company congratulate themselves on the disc's extras about how groundbreaking The Bone Collector is and how nothing like this has ever been attempted in the history of cinema, but it's really just another post-Se7en Hollywood thriller, only truly remarkable in that they didn't cast Ashley Judd as the female lead. Miscast eye candy? Yup. An improbable third act romance between master and protégé? Mm-hmm. Characters who are motivated by movie-logic, making baffling decisions no one ever would in the real world 'cause otherwise, the end credits would start their upward crawl twenty minutes in? Of course. A slew of red herrings followed by the random revelation of the killer's identity complete with a borderline non-sensical explanation as to what drove him to tally such a hefty body count? Completely predictable plot twists? Scores of contrivances and coincidences to push things along? Check, check, and check.
As preposterous and predictable as it can be, The Bone Collector isn't any better nor any worse than a couple dozen other conventional, big-studio thrillers that Hollywood churned out in the mid-to-late '90s, but a disposable, formulaic "it's okay, I guess" flick really isn't something I'd want to shell out twenty bucks to buy.
Video: This 2.35:1 high-definition presentation of The Bone Collector generally looks pretty good, but aside from some of the striking
close-ups, it ranks somewhere around the average mark for HD DVD. I don't have the original DVD handy, but I'm assuming this disc shares the same six year old transfer. It's riddled with a surprisingly large number of small specks, and although the image is often fairly sharp and detailed, it rarely leaps off the screen the way so many other HD DVDs have. Since the movie divides its time between Rhyme's blandly dressed apartment, overcast exteriors, and the dark, dank tunnels under the city, the robustness of the palette is understandably limited. I was also a bit surprised that the fist-sized chunks of film grain in the closing moments of The Bone Collector look like soft, smeary noise rather than crisply defined grain. Black levels are deep and inky, though, and the image holds up well even in the movie's most dimly-lit sequences. I wasn't disappointed but was rarely wowed, only finding myself impressed when the camera pulled in ridiculously close to the cast. Like the movie itself, this HD DVD of The Bone Collector is fine but mostly unremarkable.
Audio: The Bone Collector has its lead characters chasing after victims rather than the killer who abducted them, and that lack of immediate danger to our heroes is reflected in the somewhat timid Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio. The mix does a commendable job spreading sound across the various channels, establishing a strong sense of atmosphere, but the dynamics really aren't there. The movie doesn't have the usual swooping thriller score or resounding stings, and there are only a couple of explosive booms to coax much of a punishing roar from the subwoofer; the soundtrack seems comfortable hovering somewhere around the middle. I've come across complaints on several of the message boards I read about how the mix drowns out dialogue in favor of the score and sound effects, but I didn't run into that problem, although I did keep my receiver a couple ticks louder than usual. Merely okay. The disc also includes a DTS 5.1 mix, a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 French dub, and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.
Supplements: The handful of extras are all lifted from the original DVD, although the only one that's really worth mentioning is the audio commentary by director Phillip Noyce. The enthusiastic, personable Noyce cuts a wide swath -- delving into technical aspects, the story, the acting, and his approach to the material -- but takes care to avoid peppering his comments with jargon. He doesn't stop at explaining how some of his directorial choices were implemented but takes the time to explain why those choices were made in the first place. This makes for an excellent introduction for someone who's never listened to a commentary before, although they run the risk of walking away as giddy about The Bone Collector as its director. Plus, as a comic book nerd, it's kinda neat to hear about the stamp future Daredevil artist Alex Maleev left on the movie's storyboards.
Aside from some of the comments about the attention paid to detail and realism, the making-of featurette is an overly promotional wasteland, devoting nearly every moment of its 22 minute runtime to clips from the film and the usual actor/producer/director chatter about how wonderful everyone and everything is. All of its highlights are covered in the audio commentary, so don't bother. The only other extra is a letterboxed, non-anamorphic theatrical trailer.
Conclusion: With hundreds, if not thousands, of movies at their fingertips, why Universal chose to dust off The Bone Collector from their back catalog as an early HD DVD release is kind of a puzzler. It's not high-definition eye candy, there's nothing remarkable about the movie itself, it doesn't really have a cult following, and it's not riding the marketing coattails of a recent theatrical release. The Bone Collector is the instantly forgettable type of movie I'm more likely to watch on USA at 3:30 PM on a Saturday afternoon than fork over a twenty dollar bill to own forever and ever. Wait for this disc to hit the bargain bins, opt for a rental instead, or pass entirely.
Standard image disclaimer: the pictures scattered around this review were lifted from AllMoviePhoto.com and don't necessarily reflect the appearance of this HD DVD. Pictures make things pretty.
point out the filmmakers' slavish devotion to realism, and all of that time and energy has really paid off. The movie's about a serial killer cabbie who uses turn-of-the-century tools to slaughter his fares, littering these grisly scenes with obscure clues to his next murder. Former model-slash-police officer Amelia Donaghy (a then-unknown Angelina Jolie) uncovers the first body, savvy enough to (1) stand in the path of a train that's about to barrel over some evidence and (2) photograph a footprint (before rain can wash it away) with a disposable camera purchased by a terrified inner-city child witness who she gives a few bucks and sends to the drug store. This deeply impresses quadroplegic author/former police head honcho Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington), who's still on active duty despite not being able to move more than his mouth or an index finger for the past four years. Since Rhyme can't exactly step foot outside of his $2.3 million New York apartment that's overflowing with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical equipment and voice-activated computer gear, he instructs the trained professionals to keep back and let this busty, untested beat cop serve as his eyes and ears at each crime scene. Rhyme and Donaghy usually figure out the clues just in time to watch someone die, but then...:gasp!:...the masked killer snatches a little girl and some old guy. Oh, plug one of the city's most prominent businessmen in the head, roast his wife in an underground glorified rice steamer, feed a bloodied college student to rats, murder a cop on the streets of New York in cold blood, and...forget about her father or grandfather or whatever. The killer's snatched a kid, so he's really crossed the line! This sends the investigation into high gear,
distracting Donaghy and her more mobile comrades. Since neither of our heroes have encountered the masked killer up to this point and since one of the lead characters is all alone in his apartment and can't fight back, I'll leave it up to you to connect the climactic dots. Director Phillip Noyce and company congratulate themselves on the disc's extras about how groundbreaking The Bone Collector is and how nothing like this has ever been attempted in the history of cinema, but it's really just another post-Se7en Hollywood thriller, only truly remarkable in that they didn't cast Ashley Judd as the female lead. Miscast eye candy? Yup. An improbable third act romance between master and protégé? Mm-hmm. Characters who are motivated by movie-logic, making baffling decisions no one ever would in the real world 'cause otherwise, the end credits would start their upward crawl twenty minutes in? Of course. A slew of red herrings followed by the random revelation of the killer's identity complete with a borderline non-sensical explanation as to what drove him to tally such a hefty body count? Completely predictable plot twists? Scores of contrivances and coincidences to push things along? Check, check, and check.
As preposterous and predictable as it can be, The Bone Collector isn't any better nor any worse than a couple dozen other conventional, big-studio thrillers that Hollywood churned out in the mid-to-late '90s, but a disposable, formulaic "it's okay, I guess" flick really isn't something I'd want to shell out twenty bucks to buy.
Video: This 2.35:1 high-definition presentation of The Bone Collector generally looks pretty good, but aside from some of the striking
close-ups, it ranks somewhere around the average mark for HD DVD. I don't have the original DVD handy, but I'm assuming this disc shares the same six year old transfer. It's riddled with a surprisingly large number of small specks, and although the image is often fairly sharp and detailed, it rarely leaps off the screen the way so many other HD DVDs have. Since the movie divides its time between Rhyme's blandly dressed apartment, overcast exteriors, and the dark, dank tunnels under the city, the robustness of the palette is understandably limited. I was also a bit surprised that the fist-sized chunks of film grain in the closing moments of The Bone Collector look like soft, smeary noise rather than crisply defined grain. Black levels are deep and inky, though, and the image holds up well even in the movie's most dimly-lit sequences. I wasn't disappointed but was rarely wowed, only finding myself impressed when the camera pulled in ridiculously close to the cast. Like the movie itself, this HD DVD of The Bone Collector is fine but mostly unremarkable. Audio: The Bone Collector has its lead characters chasing after victims rather than the killer who abducted them, and that lack of immediate danger to our heroes is reflected in the somewhat timid Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio. The mix does a commendable job spreading sound across the various channels, establishing a strong sense of atmosphere, but the dynamics really aren't there. The movie doesn't have the usual swooping thriller score or resounding stings, and there are only a couple of explosive booms to coax much of a punishing roar from the subwoofer; the soundtrack seems comfortable hovering somewhere around the middle. I've come across complaints on several of the message boards I read about how the mix drowns out dialogue in favor of the score and sound effects, but I didn't run into that problem, although I did keep my receiver a couple ticks louder than usual. Merely okay. The disc also includes a DTS 5.1 mix, a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 French dub, and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.
Supplements: The handful of extras are all lifted from the original DVD, although the only one that's really worth mentioning is the audio commentary by director Phillip Noyce. The enthusiastic, personable Noyce cuts a wide swath -- delving into technical aspects, the story, the acting, and his approach to the material -- but takes care to avoid peppering his comments with jargon. He doesn't stop at explaining how some of his directorial choices were implemented but takes the time to explain why those choices were made in the first place. This makes for an excellent introduction for someone who's never listened to a commentary before, although they run the risk of walking away as giddy about The Bone Collector as its director. Plus, as a comic book nerd, it's kinda neat to hear about the stamp future Daredevil artist Alex Maleev left on the movie's storyboards.
Aside from some of the comments about the attention paid to detail and realism, the making-of featurette is an overly promotional wasteland, devoting nearly every moment of its 22 minute runtime to clips from the film and the usual actor/producer/director chatter about how wonderful everyone and everything is. All of its highlights are covered in the audio commentary, so don't bother. The only other extra is a letterboxed, non-anamorphic theatrical trailer.
Conclusion: With hundreds, if not thousands, of movies at their fingertips, why Universal chose to dust off The Bone Collector from their back catalog as an early HD DVD release is kind of a puzzler. It's not high-definition eye candy, there's nothing remarkable about the movie itself, it doesn't really have a cult following, and it's not riding the marketing coattails of a recent theatrical release. The Bone Collector is the instantly forgettable type of movie I'm more likely to watch on USA at 3:30 PM on a Saturday afternoon than fork over a twenty dollar bill to own forever and ever. Wait for this disc to hit the bargain bins, opt for a rental instead, or pass entirely.
Standard image disclaimer: the pictures scattered around this review were lifted from AllMoviePhoto.com and don't necessarily reflect the appearance of this HD DVD. Pictures make things pretty.
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