Description: Director Terry Gilliam (Brazil) and an all-star cast including John Neville, Eric Idle, Oliver Reed and Uma Thurman deliver this tale of the enchanting adventures of Baron von Munchausen on his journey to save a town from defeat. Being swallowed by a giant sea-monster, a trip to the moon, a dance with Venus and an escape from the Grim Reaper are only some of the improbable adventures.

The Film:

The tall tales of the legendary 18th-century Baron Munchausen would seem perfect subject matter for Gilliam's fertile imagination; indeed, despite production problems, the film is an engaging and dottily fantastic spectacular. The Baron (Neville) and his superhuman colleagues are rather colourless creations, but the characters they encounter during their odyssey - mafioso-like King of the Moon (Williams), love-lorn Vulcan (Reed) - are vivid and funny. Still more bizarre is the look of the film: an island transformed into a monstrous fish, a balloon sewn from underwear sailing over a war-torn city, a ship rippling through a desert strewn with statuary. But this third part of Gilliam's trilogy, about 'the triumph of imagination over rationality' and lighter in tone than Brazil, hardly warrants serious analysis. More of its budget should have been spent on the script - there are jarring leaps in the narrative - but it's good, intelligent fun, and occasionally truly surprising.

This dual-layered Blu-ray looks quite strong. Detail translates with surprising effectiveness, depth and clarity. The 35mm source shows textured grain looking quite film-like. Noise is limited and colors appear vibrant and accurate. Now, I'll state my expectation were not especially high for this title but they were, certainly, exceeded. It's a film filled with amusing effects that come across seamlessly via HD. The DVD had compression issues and the image was not stellar via SD. It's a decent bitrate and this Blu-ray transfer represents the film extremely well for home theatre viewing - a definite, and highly noticeable, upgrade.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio & Music: We are given a decent Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track that, although not extensively dynamic, does the job well enough to satisfy. I noted no flaws and the explosions and amusing music sounded adequate, not as much separation as one might expect. There is a French lossless DUB included and subtitles in a host of options. My Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide. 

 

 

 

Extras: Gilliam takes the lead in the commentary track which exports standard fare, but still nice to hear him discuss the film with some nostalgia. Extensive, and reminding me of the supplement information on Criterion's Brazil, is a 3-part Making of... featurette entitled The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen. It runs almost 1 hour 15 minutes but is only offered in standard -definition. Lots of detail on battles with the studio and production foibles. Great stuff. Also are some poor quality deleted scenes in letterbox widescreen and some storyboard sequences (with optional commentary by Gilliam). Included as a Blu-ray Exclusive is the Marvelous World of Munchausen enhanced graphics and Trivia Track.

 

 

Bottom line: I saw this in the theatre and at least twice at home since then but never really warmed to the film, although, I guess, I wanted to. Cute enough but something was never 'right' for me. Until now. Perhaps I have matured (or digressed?). Or, it is quite possible that watching the grander visuals via Blu-ray, sold me to a higher level than previous. Of course the featurette in the supplements, helped improve my appreciation of the film and I had much more fun with it this time (as did my kids). So, that sounds like a recommendation.

Gary Tooze
April 5th, 2008

November 2010