Flatliners Blu-ray features mediocre video and decent audio in this mediocre Blu-ray release
An ambitious, charismatic medical student persuades his classmates to take part in a reckless experiment. To see if there is life after death, they will kill themselves: temporarily shut down ("flatline") their heart and brain functions to briefly experience clinical death. Their horror begins when they realize that although they've come back alive... they haven't come back alone.
No, Flatliners isn't an episode of "Star Trek" or a documentary
about what went wrong with Star Trek V, even
though the above quote -- the first line of Flatliners, in fact -- has become synonymous
with a certain warlike, rigid-forehead alien species from that series. Though the film begins with
a word on death, Flatliners
isn't really a film about death at all; it's a film about life, about how to make the most of it, about
the worthy effort of returning balance to and engendering a sense of goodness and
completion for the soul. Flatliners uses death as a means of allowing its characters --
and by extension its audience -- to see life and the world that shapes it in a new light, the
picture's primary theme an examination of the importance of, as Kiefer Sutherland's (Young Guns)
character calls it, "salvation" and the task of righting the wrongs of the past that torment a
man's soul from
its deepest recesses, wrongs that influence and shape his life, even if he's unaware of the slow
and steady
but harmful process. Wrapped in the guise of a medically-based Horror/Thriller, Flatliners
proves a far better film than expected, not shying away from some deeper elements that give
weight and meaning to Director Joel Schumacher's (Phone Booth)
radically artsy picture.
Time to die.
At a dark and unforgiving medical school, five highly intelligent and ambitious-to-a-fault medical
students -- Nelson (Sutherland), Rachel (Julia Roberts, Mona Lisa Smile),
David (Kevin Bacon, Hollow Man), Joe
(William Baldwin, Backdraft), and Randy (Oliver Platt, 2012) -- are about
to embark on a risky journey that promises to take them where no man has gone before and
lived to tell about it. Nelson convinces his colleagues to kill him with the promise of resuscitation
soon thereafter in order to answer the greatest question of all: what lies beyond this world and
this
state of consciousness that defines "life." After a successful trip into the hereafter and back,
Nelson's colleagues become more enamored with the idea and volunteer to die in the name of
medical science -- and for some of them, their own hubris. As they stay under for greater periods
of time, pushing the envelope with every passing second and playing God with the lives of their
friends, these "flatliners" come face-to-face with their own demons as they ultimately realize that
they're learning more about life
than death.
Aside from its themes which are gradually explored as the story comes into focus,
Flatliners'
predominant feature proves Director Joel Schumacher's unique visual style and flair for the
flat-out
weird. Flatliners has his
fingerprints all over it; it's one of those movies that features a look that's so unique that anyone
who is more than passingly familiar with some of the director's other works -- The Lost Boys and
his
two Batmanpictures being perhaps the
best
examples -- could easily identify
the creative talent behind the movie. Flatliners incorporates just about every trademark
Schumacher element; it's bathed in deep and dark shadows, contains plenty of
Gothic-style architecture and sculptures, introduces splashes of neon-bathed imagery amidst the
darkness, features a needless scene of bright and creepy random people sporting excessively
colorful and slightly grotesque Halloween costumes, and offers several sweeping flyover vistas for
good measure. His
visuals are accompanied by the requisite late 1980s, early 1990s-style mix of rock and synth
music that's also heavily reminiscent of The Lost Boys. With Flatliners and
The Lost Boys, Schumacher makes his unique style work in conjunction with stories that
are able to absorb the weirdness of the visuals within the context of what are generally dark
stories; it's only when his style tries to blend with necessarily lighter material -- his subpar
Batman films -- that it fails to impress.
Indeed, Flatliners works very well on the strength of its themes and its story, and while
Schumacher's unusual visual style isn't much of a hindrance, it's of only moderate help to a tale
that almost requires shadows and dark visuals, but could do without some of the excesses that
define what
trademark Schumacher is all about. Nevertheless, Flatliners proves an often intense
picture despite
a fairly repetitive song and dance routine -- particularly in the first half -- that sees characters
being deliberately killed and revived, with hints of what's to come for each of them gradually
finding their way into the movie. There's also the picture's sharp, sometimes witty, but often
meaningful script that does occasionally get lost in the aura of "strange" that surrounds the
movie,
but by film's end, it's easy to separate what's worthwhile in the Flatliners experience and
what's excess visual fluff. Additionally, the performances from what was a then-young but
hip-and-happening cast are solid all around. There's an honesty to the main players --
particularly the trio of Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, and Kevin Bacon -- whose characters are
not only the most central to the story but are given weight by the actors that understand,
embrace, and accentuate the themes of redemption, salvation,
and forgiveness for past wrongs and traumas.
Flatliners' sometimes unmercifully dark and grim 1080p, MPEG-2 encoded,
2.35:1-framed
transfer doesn't equate to visual bliss; it's certainly not one of Sony's better efforts, but it's still a
couple of notches better than its standard-definition DVD counterpart. The transfer gets off to a
shaky start with some excessive telecine wobble in the opening titles and heavy haloing around
several objects, and rarely does it here or elsewhere demonstrate more than a middling
proficiency in any one area. An excessively dark picture, Flatliners demands solid black
levels, and while they never brighten up to an unnatural shade of gray, they do tend to
overwhelm the image and devour any and all details in their paths. Colors are drab, but the
picture does accentuate shades of blue and, occasionally, red, amidst the darkness, and some of
the film's several flashback scenes deliver a more aggressive color scheme that reveals additional
hues. Unfortunately, flesh tones often veer towards the red end of the spectrum, and faces
sometimes suffer from a plastic, artificial appearance despite the retention of some film grain.
Slight banding and a few scratches and debris are also visible in a
few shots. On the plus side, Flatliners sometimes showcases a fair sense of depth and
sports
some solid detailing through the darkness, particularly visible on the intricate Gothic-style
architectural cues scattered
about the film, as well as more modern brick-and-mortar walls. While not a horrendous transfer,
Flatliners' 1080p image just doesn't hold up next to the significantly better presentations
Sony
has been providing of late.
Flatliners blares out a decent but ultimately unmemorable PCM 5.1 uncompressed
soundtrack. Despite a positive, rumbling low end, there's a mushy feel to just about every aspect
of
the track that's only accentuated by its lack of pristine clarity. The film's score comes through
clearly but not necessarily crisply; it's absent a more natural flow and presence that would have
significantly boosted the overall sonic experience. The picture's scattered sound effects --
whether
creepy atmospherics in some of the run-down locales and in the various flashback scenes or in
more
aggressive and notable effects such as bicycles zipping from one side of the soundstage to the
other
-- don't do much to heighten the experience, either; they often come off as a bit forced and
unnatural in tone, but not necessarily to a distracting or otherwise debilitating level. Dialogue is
generally focused and clear, though like the rest of the track, it sometimes suffers from a
muffled presentation. Nevertheless, this isn't a poor uncompressed mix; it has its shortcomings
and it's certainly
not anything over which to become excited, a shame considering that Flatliners was
nominated for an Oscar in recognition of its sound effects editing. Still, the track supports the
movie and the mediocre visual
presentation well enough to get viewers through a watch without any excessive sonic problems.
Flatliners isn't a classic; it's not even much of a fan-favorite, but it is a capable movie that
overcomes Joel Schumacher's quirky visuals thanks to a solid and somewhat original story that
allows some positive light in the form of a message on the importance of salvation, redemption, and
forgiveness to shine through even the dark and murky atmosphere that, stylistically, dominates the
picture.
Sporting some good performances from a cast of hip-and-happening stars-on-the-rise from the early
1990s, Flatliners shows plenty of life even 20-some years after its theatrical debut. On the
other hand, Sony's Blu-ray disc -- released in the early days of the format -- is on life support. With
no extras, a middling 1080p image, and a passably decent uncompressed soundtrack, the strength
of the movie is the lone selling point with this one. Hopefully, Sony will revisit Flatliners in
the future and deliver the more capable technical presentation and the slew of extra content the
film
deserves. Until then, fans will want to rent this when the mood to watch it arises.
