(as verified by the
Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)
Runtime: 2:02:55.993
Disc Size: 25,904,639,605 bytes
Feature Size: 23,565,361,152 bytes
Video Bitrate: 19.43 Mbps
Chapters: 31
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date:
October 27, 2009
Video:
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Video codec: VC-1 1080p / 23.976 fps
Bitrate:
Audio:
Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1435 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1435
kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Portuguese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640
kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, French and none
Extras:
• Mama's Little Devils: Bad Seeds & Evil Children – in HD
(15 min.)
• Deleted Scenes – in SD (4 min.)
• Alternate Ending
• Digital Copy Disc
• BD-Live 2.0
The Film:
It would be a big mistake to lead with your most intense
scene in almost any genre of film, and so it was with some
trepidation that I followed the events that unfolded after
the opening nightmare – a grisly and grisly sight not meant
for the faint of heart - or pregnant women. As it happens,
Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra (the 2005 House of Wax)
has merely set us up for the horrific nightmare that takes
up most of the next two hours.
I don't quite know why people refer to Orphan as having a
"twist ending." A twist, as I see it, is a plot turn that is
unexpected and upends expectations. But in this case, from
the moment we see Esther painting at the orphanage or, if
not then, certainly when playing Tchaikovsky on the piano
with a remarkable facility, we have to be unconscious not to
be asking how she can do that. From then on, Esther
manifests other behaviors and insights that beg the same
question. So when we finally learn the answer (one that
should not really surprise and one of the few that makes the
slightest bit of sense), we should be gratified that Orphan
has at least some of its wits about it.
A gifted cast heads this roller coaster of a horrorshow in
slow motion. First there's Vera Farmiga, I thought misplaced
in Scorsese's The Departed, is painfully believable as Kate,
the mother of two, tormented with a houseful of guilt
because of a recent miscarriage and her fragile recovery
from alcohol abuse. Her husband, John, is played by Peter
Sarsgaard (always the competent supporting actor) is so
transparently condescending to his wife that we suspect he
is setting things up to leave her. And then there are the
children: 13 year old veteran actor Jimmy Bennett (scarcely
recognizable as the same kid who played the brash young
James T. Kirk in the new Star Trek movie) is Dennis, at
first nasty to his new adopted sister, but soon to pay for
his mistake; and Aryana Engineer, the youngest actor in this
melodrama, hearing impaired since birth, plays Max, who sees
all, feels everything and understands even more.
Which leads us to the title character in this bizarre little
tale: Esther, a nine-ish orphan who charms and insinuates
her way into way into this unsuspecting family, but who has
designs that would embarrass even Edgar Allan. Esther is
played by a relatively unknown chameleon from Washington
D.C. (how appropriate!) named Isabelle Fuhrman, who brings
to this "bad seed" a gender-role bending slant undreamed of
by Rhonda Penmark. Esther is the character who grabs our
attention, and Ms. Fuhrman gives an awesome performance,
matching Farmiga at every step, keeping her public face cool
and collected, while mom disintegrates in the face of such
an unexpected force. The duel between them, set up by dad's
attentions to Esther from the outset, is skin crawling
stuff. Still, I have to tip my hat to little Miss Aryana,
whose completely natural performance, if a performance is
what it is, keeps this movie grounded – and makes all that
happens that much scarier.
Image:
9/9
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
captures were ripped directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.
The first number indicates a relative level of excellence
compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale.
The second number places this image along the full range of
DVD and Blu-ray discs.
From the outset, Orphan is a densely constructed image with
little if any trace of distressing artifacts, enhancements
or DNR. In some scenes a modest grain is evident, and in the
darkest moments, the faintest whisper of noise. But
generally the image is excellent, filling 23.5 GB of its
single layered disc, saturated and muted by turns, with
excellent detail, fine control of contrast and natural skin
tones consistent with the lighting.
CLICK EACH
BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio & Music:
8/7
Unlike many horror movies, the sound effects are not pumped
up – neither bass nor treble is given that extra punch that
usually comes with this territory. Instead, the audio is
naturally set, often relatively quiet – until the final
confrontation between mother and child. Whether the sound of
screeching tires, the crackle of fire, the whack of a
paintball or the crunch of snow, the audio mix is given its
due, but no more. My one problem was the final duel where
knife attacks arrived with such force in the audio mix that
surely someone would be dead twice over – and we can hardly
tell who is doing what to whom. I'm sure this is the
intention, but it didn't work for me.
Operations:
7
The disc loads quickly enough, as is typical of Warner
Blu-rays, and the menu design, bland but easy to use, with
chapter thumbnails that easily identifies the point you want
to enter the film.
Extras:
2
The deleted scenes are not worth the trouble – probably
that's why they were deleted, if they even got that far. The
featurette, "Mama's Little Devils" should have remained with
the subject: a history of bad seed kids on film. It does
that for a brief stretch and then devolves into a kind of
making of Orphan with more clips form the feature than it
had any cause to use.
Bottom line:
7
Likely to become one of my personal guilty pleasures, Orphan
certainly stretches believability to the breaking point, but
the movie got under my skin all the same, not because I
thought there was any cautionary message about crazy
children, or that husbands should pay more attention to
their wives, or that therapists don't know a nut job from a
bag of elbows. It's trash, to be sure, and takes us places
we might be better off not exploring, but Collet-Serra found
my nerve all right, and Warner's high-def transfer did a
bloody good job of it.
Leonard Norwitz
November 7th, 2009