In The Shawshank Redemption, Hope Springs Eternal on Blu-ray (Blu-ray Review)

December 1st, 2008 Blu-ray-au Posted in Blu-ray Movie Reviews | Comments Off

In The Shawshank Redemption, Hope Springs Eternal on Blu-ray (Blu-ray Review)

The technical merits of BD production are solid in this feel-good tale of friendship, freedom and hope.

Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best picture, and often called ?the best film of the ?90s,? The Shawshank Redemption tells the inspirational tale of two convincts? difficult transcendence from their life in prison to freedom. On first viewing, the movie is heartwarming and preaches the gospel of hope. Those who adore it will enjoy Warner?s special edition Blu-ray, which not only delivers high definition video and improved audio, but includes a 32-page booklet as part of the …

Video

Boasting impressive contrast and definition within its 1.85:1 picture, The Shawshank Redemption features superior resolution compared to all NTSC versions–even upscaled DVD. It also compares well with most other Blu-rays, achieving near reference quality. I decided that minor issues with the depth and loss of detail in the dark areas held it back from a perfect score, but honestly it could not get much better. Grain haters will delight in the clean presentation, although small film granu…

Audio

The audio is not as stellar as the picture quality. At times it is spotty and reminds me a bit of CDs produced using a bad transfer of analog tape-to-digital, though to be fair those are brief moments. The majority of the film is better than those passages. On the “plus” side, the BD does have a Dolby TrueHD track, delivering lossless digital audio at 16-bit 48 kHz, which is not much better than CD quality. At times it sounds like a good CD, with impressive definition, lush presentation and line…

Supplements

The book edition Blu-ray includes all the bonus features from Warner’s special edition DVD, and therefore it is all in standard definition. Frank Darabont’s audio commentary addresses his changes to Stephen King’s story and various production issues. I found the commentary quite boring and uninformative, but your mileage may vary. The bonus features are as follows:

Hope Springs Eternal: A Look Back at The Shawshank Redemption–clocking in at 32 minutes, this documentary …

Final Words

Since The Shawshank Redemption tells such a wonderful story, some may ask why it deserves criticism at all. Emotional films are very influential because they disarm audiences and make the viewer more susceptible to all their messages. Most of The Shawshank Redemption’s messaging is very admirable–the lack of racial barriers and the emphasis on education and hope. But some is not so admirable. Religion is subtly expressed in the movie as a tool for corruption and lack of morals and……

Read full review: Blu-ray.com