The Wicker Man Blu-ray offers decent video and audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
"We're different here." Policeman Edward Malus doesn't know just how terrifyingly different the
people of Summersisle are, but he will. He's come to the private island to find a missing child.
And each step of his search draws him deeper into a web of pagan ritual and deadly deceit --
and closer to The Wicker Man.
Nicolas Cage plays Malus, Ellen Burstyn portrays the eerie matriarch Sister Summersisle,
and Neil LaBute writes and directs this shattering tale of an unspeakable horror. Weary and
increasingly on edge, Malus faces a defiant, unfamiliar world where his badge and gun mean
nothing... and his presence on the isle means everything. It is the Day of Death and Rebirth on
Summersisle. No one can escape.
Aficionados of film who approach the medium with a slightly more intellectual curiosity than the
mere cruncher of popcorn understand that rarely do the succeeding decades each produce more
than one film of rare quality -- a film that combines a well-developed screen play with a visionary
director, a cast of genuine actors whose immersion in their characters create
a story of life-like brilliance, a dedication to cinematographic detail, and editing of a quality rarely
experienced -- that make for a classic film of such undeniable brilliance that all but the most
blissfully unaware of filmgoers do not recognize the clarity of vision and intent that come
together
in a movie that transcends all other films of its period. Metropolis (1927), Grand
Hotel (1932), The Maltese Falcon (1941), On the Waterfront (1954),
Doctor Zhivago, (1965), Chinatown (1974), Blade Runner
(1982), and Fargo (1996), each
represent filmmaking at its pinnacle. Clearly, intellectually gifted and astute students of film
recognize that these titles exemplify filmmaking at the pinnacle of the decade each graced. Such
a film for the first decade of the 21st century certainly is not the Nicholas Cage (Ghost Rider) snorer,
The
Wicker
Man.
Alright, who's the wise guy that erased all the best lines from the movie?
Officer Edward Malus (Cage) receives a letter from his ex-fiance stating that her daughter,
Rowan, has vanished, with clues leading to the mysterious Summersisle where a cultish
society lives in seclusion. Malus is shunned as an outsider, his basic needs of food and shelter
provided only as a necessary courtesy. The townsfolk disavow all knowledge of Rowan, but Malus
begins to piece together clues that lead him to believe she was recently a member of the
community. As the outsider digs deeper, the townsfolk only seem to become more strange, more
devious, and more disturbed at Malus and his methods of investigation and, ultimately,
intimidation. Malus soon finds himself in the middle of
a scheme more deadly and diabolical than anything he could have imagined.
Cage enthralls audiences with his brilliant and insightful character study of Sheriff Edward Malus,
a man determined to solve a crime, but unlike the characters portrayed by Bogart, Nicholson,
Ford, and McDormand in the above-noted classics, Cage increases the pantheon of dogged and
celebrated detectives by providing not only a performance of greater lasting quality, but delivering
memorable lines such as "what happened to her?" and "how did it get burned?" with such gusto,
significance, and naturalism
as quite possibly never to be topped in the decades and centuries of cinema to come. Certainly,
no individual involved in solving a true crime could ever, on their own, so engage a witness as to
assure immediate results as Cage asking those simply-stated yet so complex-in-meaning and
precise-in-purpose questions. Indeed, authors of textbooks on criminology and university faculty
invested in the pedagogy of this field would do well to incorporate such truth-seeking idioms into
both texts and lectures. It is in detail such as this, combining the unmistakable talent of the actor
with the breath-stopping transcendence of reality, moving far beyond the static complacency of
all but a few great films, that audiences revel in and greatly admire The Wicker Man.
This structure of detail provides, in this most excellent cinematic experience, the moment of
time-stopping awe that differentiates a true classic film from the mostly mundane millions of
miles
of misused celluloid, making The Wicker Man a cinematic experience to be treasured and
oft-enjoyed. Or not.
The Wicker Man arrives on Blu-ray with a mediocre 1080p, 2.35:1-framed transfer. The
image appears soft much of the time, and fine levels of visible detail are sparse. Viewers will
make out precious few stitches in clothing, fine lines in faces, or textures of various pieces of
wooden furniture seen throughout the film. The image is clearer than standard definition
material, but it's not all that sharp; it won't be mistaken for DVD, but it never offers that "wow"
factor of the best of the best high definition transfers, either. Colors are neither too drab nor overly
bright, but they appear a
bit darker than natural. The film always seems like it was shot during overcast conditions, but
considering its Pacific Northwest setting, that's to be expected. Flesh tones are decent, and black
levels range from fine to a bit too gray. The Wicker Man makes for passable high definition
material and nothing more.
A lossless soundtrack partakes in a vanishing act on this disc, leaving only a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix to
entertain the ears of the film's audience. The track is a pedestrian one, loud and somewhat
aggressive at times but never very exciting, making do with what it has to work with and never
distinguishing itself from the thousands of other Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks out there, on Blu-ray and
otherwise. A few good directional effects are heard scattered here and there, a crow screeching and
flapping its wings inside a schoolhouse in one scene, for example. Dialogue reproduction is good,
and the music is presented with crispness and clarity. The Wicker Man sounds neither good
nor bad. It's a mediocre, forgettable track that does all that is asked of it, nothing more and
nothing less.
The Wicker Man comes to Blu-ray with only two extras, a trailer (480p, 2:16) and a
commentary track with Director Neil LaBute, Actors Leelee Sobieski and Kate Beahan, Editor Joel
Plotch, and Costume Designer Lynette Meyer. LaBute dominates the track, discussing the full range
of standard commentary fare -- shooting locales, the work of the actors, some of the updates from
the original 1973 film, shooting techniques, and more. It's a bland listen, certainly far more than
is necessary for what is a fairly dull and meaningless movie.
In all seriousness on April Fool's Day, The Wicker Man is a truly awful movie. The dialogue
is
consistently
terrible, the pacing makes "sluggish" seems like a speeding rocket, and the plot makes little sense.
The characters are poorly developed, with all of
them, save for Cage, blending one into another, the result a jumbled mess where it's easier to give
up rather than sift through them all. This is a movie that goes nowhere and does nothing on the
way, simply meandering through a script that provides Nicolas Cage with the worst material of his
otherwise good
career. Warner Brothers' Blu-ray release of
The Wicker Man is satisfactory for the quality of the movie. The video and audio are bland
but passable, and the disc isn't weighed down by too many extras. The Wicker Man is
worth renting just to see how truly awful it really is, but otherwise it's one to avoid.
