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Review added April 4, 2004.
The
One
:: DVD Review |
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Studio:
Columbia TriStar |
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>> Review
Equipment |
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Video:
2.35:1 (Enhanced for 16:9) |
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Length:
84
Minutes |
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Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 (448kbps) En/Fr |
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Subtitles: En/Fr/Arb/Hi |
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Video Format:
PAL |
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Disc Format:
RSDL DVD-9 |
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Layer Change:
53:46 |
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Disc Capacity Utilised:
6.23GB |
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Average Bit-Rate (A+V):
6.34Mbps |
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Region Coding:
4 |
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:: The Film
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>> Skip to
Audio/Video Details
Somehow this film seems very
familiar, with bits and pieces from numerous past films
cobbled together to form a pretty average science fiction
amalgum. Given the film's premise, I wouldn't have been at
all surprised to see Jean-Claude Van Damme starring (the
original Mr. "A shot of my ass in every film". Thank God
Harvey Keitel never became an action star!), but filling
his shoes is the diminutive Jet Li. Li isn't the greatest
actor, but he sure knows how to fight on screen.
Li plays dual roles as Gabe and
Yulaw, slightly different versions of the same person from
two different parallel universes. Apparently, there are 125
of these parallel universes, each populated with essentially
same people, yet all slightly different in some way (we get
to see several parallel versions of the main protagonist,
ranging from a blonde Swede to a dreadlocked Rastafarian).
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Yulaw, one of these many
incarnations, comes from a universe that has perfected the
ability to travel between universes. Once an officer of the agency that polices
cross-universe travel, Yulaw accidentally discovered that when an
individual in one of these parallel universe dies the deceased's life energy
is divided among the remaining versions in the other universes.
Those remaining grow faster,
stronger, smarter etc. Based on his discovery Yulaw believes that killing
every other version of himself in each of these parallel universes will make
him 'The One' (an all powerful superbeing). Yulaw has managed to kill 123 of
his cross-dimensional counterparts, and following a brief recapture and escape
finds himself in the universe of his final target: Gabe, an LA Sheriff. Trying
to prevent Yulaw are two MVA agents (that's MVA for 'Multiverse Agents'. No,
it doesn't make sense), played by Jason Statham and Delroy Lindo.
Even as standard cheesy science
fiction films go, this one has some pretty major plot holes and leaps of
logic. The film's special effects are very good, as are its fight sequences
(especially some cool slow motion digital effects) but I felt it was all a
little 'meh' in the end. Your mileage may vary.
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Video
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Columbia TriStar have once again produced an excellent
transfer, with only a few minor issues that seem to
similarly plague other CTS titles. Naturally the print is
very clean, and the image very smooth for the most part,
with only some occasional grain intruding on the picture
in a handful of scenes. Image detail is high, with a lot
of fine detail visible and only some occasional and
very minor corresponding aliasing.
Colours are particularly good, with nicely
clean purples and skin tones that look very nice if
occasionally a little over-saturated. Compression
artefacts were few and far between and only seemed to be
noticeable on flat uniform surfaces such as walls and
doors, where they showed themselves as fine macro
blocking. Black level was very good, with good shadow
detail with a few intentional exceptions.
Like many of Columbia TriStar's previous
releases, The One suffers from sporadic vertical and
horizontal edge enhancement. Otherwise this is a good
transfer, and up to Columbia's usual standards.
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| :: Audio
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The One has been given a 448kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
on DVD. Like many recent Columbia TriStar soundtracks, this
soundtrack is very quiet and requires a liberal twist of the
volume dial. Even after this soundtrack's volume was increased
I still found it somewhat lacking. Bass isn't quite as
resounding as I had anticipated and the entire soundtrack
appears to have been dynamically compressed, which prevents
the soundtrack from ever really soaring.
Dialogue is clear with no sign of
distortion, but suffers from some very poor ADR work and lip
synch problems, making some scenes sound (and look) very
artificial. Surround activity is good, although many effects
(such as Gabe's CT scan) are about as subtle as a baseball bat
to the head. There isn't much in the way of environmental
acoustics, but there are plenty of effects across the front
three channels.
The film's score (what there is
of it) and music are all quite cleanly presented, but much of
the modern rock used sounded a little thin and anaemic (yes,
very precise technical terms aren't they) and some of the
music was just, well, bad (purely a personal opinion mind
you). This is a perfectly good soundtrack, and contains
several sequences that will impress listeners. Still, the
reduced dynamic range was quite off-putting, preventing this
soundtrack from really knocking my socks off.
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