Darkman 3: Die Darkman Die
doesn't differ greatly from its prequel,
Darkman 2: The Return of
Durant, in that Peyton Westlake (Arnold Vosloo) is still in
search of a cure that will allow him to live his life normally, yet there is
always a fly in the ointment - in this case Peter Rooker (Jeff Fahey,
best known for his role as Jobe, the simple gardener-turned-madman in
The Lawnmower Man) - ready to put him down, permanently, at the earliest
opportunity, but he will end up losing after Darkman has spent time posing as
him and some of his henchmen.
As with the last film there are two women in tow. The first is Dr. Bridget
Thorne (Darlanne Fluegel), his old doctor who helped him stay alive
after the original incident which left him in his current state. She repairs
his thalamic nerve so he can feel pain, but is it to help him or to control
him? What do you think (?!) The other is Peter's wife, Angela (Roxann
Dawson), who spends most of the film looking worried as it takes forever
to sink in what a complete bastard her hubby is.
For the last film, Darkman only managed to make him skin cells last 99 minutes,
but here he's looking to extend their life to 300 minutes with a new brand
of liquid skin cells. Jeff Fahey makes for a good, menacing bad guy, who wants
to steal and use the skin-creating formula for his own devices, such as
creating men with same attributes as Darkman, whose condition leaves him with
the strength of ten men.
The only major problem with the film is that after the 18-certs of the first
two, the 15-cert here shows the distinct lack of blood, particularly when
Fahey finally gets his comeuppance.
The 3 Darkman DVDs.
The quality of the disc is pretty much the same as the last release. The
picture is framed at the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic,
but there are some artifacts during the film which give it a hazy look at times
during dark scenes.
The average bitrate is a high and fairly steady 7.86Mb/s.
The sound is very good too. The film wasn't made in Dolby Digital 5.1 so all
the SFX are standard ProLogic, but they sound superb, mainly for explosions
and some nice directional sound effects.
Extras :
Just the one extra on this disc and I'm loathe to even give it any kind of
credit as it's a two-page 'biography' on Arnold Vosloo, which consists
of a few lines of text on one page and a selection of films he's starred in
on the other.
There are the usual 18 chapters, which is fine for this short film. Dialogue
comes in five flavours: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Subtitles are in nine: English for the hard of hearing, French, German, Dutch,
Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.
As with the last film, all the menus are silent and static.
Once again, it's a worthwhile way of spending 80-odd minutes, but the lack of
extras suggest that I recommend a rental only over a purchase.
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
