Extras: Trailers, Photo Gallery, 2 Making Of Featurettes
Directors:
Paul Verhoeven
(Total Recall),
John Irvin (Raw Deal),
Walter Hill (Red Heat),
Richard Fleischer (Red Sonja)
Producers:
Buzz Feitshans and Ronald Shusett; Martha Schumacher; Walter Hill and Gordon
Carroll; Christian Ferry
Ethan Coen
Screenplay:
Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon; Gary M. De Vore and Norman Wexler;
Harry Kleiner, Waleter Hill and Troy Kennedy Martin; Clive Exton and
George MacDonald Fraser
Music:
Jerry Goldsmith; Cinemascore; James Horner; Ennio Morricone
Cast:
Arnie, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox;
Arnie, Kathryn Harrold, Darren McGavin, Sam Wanamaker;
Arnie, James Belushi, Peter Boyle;
Arnie, Brigitte Nielsen, Sandahl Bergman, Ronald Lacey
In T2 Arnie wanted your boots, your jacket and your motorcycle, but with the Arnie Box Set,
he just wants your forty quid.
First up is Total Recall, set in 2084, in which Arnie plays construction worker
Doug Quaid and believes everything is real, but then he has no reason not to.
He's been married to the gorgeous Lori (Sharon Stone, then a sex kitten)
for the past eight years but after seeing a Rekall advert on the tube
he gets the urge to move to Mars, or at least take a holiday. What it takes him
a while to realise is that he's already been, his whole life is a lie, he
really is going out with the girl he's been dreaming about (Rachel Ticotin)
and he's been marked for death by Michael Ironside after eventually
twigging what's going on.
Raw Deal finds Arnie as ex-FBI agent Mark Kaminsky who was booted
out for being too violent and brutal. Now they need his help as three other agents,
guarding a key witness whose testimony will end the Chicago crime organisation,
are all slaughtered in an early morning raid. If Kaminsky can go in and penitrate
the organisation, run by Luigi Patrovita (Sam Wanamaker), from inside and
destroy it, he can have his old job back. For more details, check out my
review of the original 1999 release of the atrocious pan-and-scan DVD
HERE.
Red Heat is one of those films with mis-matched comedy partners,
here combining the ruthless Russian Captain Ivan "Iron Jaw" Danko (Arnie)
against slapdash plain-clothes cop Detective Art Ridzik (James Belushi).
Danko's in Chicago to pick up hard-as-nails drug-dealer, but despite getting
off on the wrong foot with Ridzik you know they'll need each other to get the
end result. Also, since the latter's in conflict with his superior, Commander
Donnelly (Peter Boyle), you can guess he'll have something to do with it.
The quartet is rounded off with Red Sonja, the only title exclusive to
this boxset. It's a tale of revenge as Arnie appears to Sonja (Brigitte
Nielsen) as a handsome stranger gifted with strength as her parents are
murdered by Queed Gedren, who rules by terror and carries a talisman with which
she can annihilate the planet. Sonja, with her great powers sets off to ensure
justice is done with the help of her new-found friend.
The four films in this boxset.
Momentum have done a great job with sourcing terrific masters for these films.
Ok, so there may be a few sparklies and minor defects on the older films
but even those look a damn sight better than expected and each one comes in
remastered anamorphic widescreen (two in 2.35:1 and two in 1.85:1)
The average bitrate for Total Recall is 5.66Mb/s, occasionally closing
in on 9Mb/s.
Both Total Recall and Red Heat have been remastered in Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound which kicks major ass when special effects come into play.
Raw Deal is Dolby Surround only in English and Red Sonja is
mono through and through. All films have various alternate languages for
dialogue, but they don't all fare as well in stature as the English option.
Sadly for this boxset extras are scant. A Trailer for each film, making-of
featurettes for both Red Heat (18 mins) and Total Recall (7 mins),
plus a 20-strong Photo Gallery for Red Sonja. All are things you'll
watch once and leave alone.
Each film contains 24 chapters apart from Red Sonja, which has 20.
Dialogue and subtitles options vary from film to film but they all include
English.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
