The picture is mostly very good most of the time, with just a few picture
flecks and a slightly soft look to it to mar your viewing. The film is
presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic.
The average bitrate is a middle-of-the-road 4.89Mb/s, wavering slightly
but once peaking over 8Mb/s.
One of the few pre-Brosnan Bond films to be given a Dolby Digital 5.1
soundtrack, it adds welcome weight to the sound FX in all action scenes,
although they do seem a little over-emphasised at times. The Duran Duran
theme tune thumps along nicely.
Extras :
Chapters :
The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVD
companies could take a lesson from this one.
Languages & Subtitles :
English is the only language on the disc - in Dolby Digital 5.1 - and there are subtitles
in 12 languages: English (and hard of hearing), Dutch, Swedish, Finnish,
Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian and Turkish.
And there's more... :
There's not as many extras this time round as with some of the earlier
discs in the series.
Featurette: Inside A View to a Kill (37 mins): Another
documentary, but this time narrated by Rosemary Lord, with chat from many
stars and crew members such as co-screenwriter Michael G. Wilson,
director John Glen, production designer Peter Lamont and
its stars, Roger Moore, Grace Jones, Christopher Walken and
Tanya Roberts, to whom time has not been kind.
Featurette: The Bond Sound - The Music of 007 (22 mins):
A look at the scores provided by composer John Barry with more chat
from many of the aforementioned, plus David Arnold.
Music Video (4½ mins): Duran Duran singing
the title theme of the same name, co-written by themselves and John Barry,
this video is, sadly, not the full monty. It's missing the opening clips
of Aubergine being killed off during the papillon sequence and is censored
later on as you are spared the sight of Nick Rhodes' camera exploding. There's
no reason for this to be cut out as it's always been shown on MTV et al and
isn't graphic in any way.
Deleted Scene (1 min): A brief scene at the Paris Police Station
after Bond is arrested when trying to capture May Day. Would've made a nice
inclusion. This extra is in 2.35:1 but non-anamorphic.
Three Trailers (6 mins): A 3-minute 16:9 anamorphic trailer,
plus two near-90-second trailers - in 16:9, but non-anamorphic - which are
almost identical, save for the voiceovers, one English and one American.
Four TV Spots (2 mins): Each last 30 seconds, are in 4:3
fullscreen and show different clips from the film.
Audio Commentary: from director John Glen and members
of the cast and crew.
Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, isn't exactly first-rate
in terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic quality
and all the interviews are clear enough.
Menu :
An animated and scored main menu, plus similar treatment given to the swipes
between menus, as we've come to expect from these Bond releases, this DVD
having a blood red look to it.
The initial screen offers you the choice to start the film, select a scene,
choose a language or watch the extras.
After the comparative disappointment of
Octopussy,
this film certainly saw a return to form for the Bond franchise, but was to
be the last Moore, awaiting the two-pronged attack from Timothy Dalton.
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL
The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order
with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
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
