Blu-ray Review: Enchanted
By
Jon Liu Video Format: 2.35:1 1080p/24
Audio Formats: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, English, Spanish, French Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Mardsen, Susan Sarandon, Timothy Spall
Directed by: Kevin Lima
Release Date: March 18, 2008
General
In the fairy-tale land of Andalasia Gizelle (Adams) falls in love with Prince Edward (Mardsen) and the two plan to marry. Though, the evil Queen Narissa (Sarandon), Edward’s mother, has other plans and wants to keep the throne for herself. Queen Narissa lures Gizelle off and casts the Princess-to-be off to live unhappily ever after in New York City. Gizelle seeks to find a way back to Andalasia where she can finally marry her Prince Edward. While stranded in New York City, she helplessly clings to a skeptical attorney, Robert Philip (Dempsey), who reluctantly aids her in returning home. As the hopelessly romantic Gizelle and the unwilling Philip spend time together they begin to fall for each other.
Tech Specs
Video: The film starts out in a simple 2D animation style that boasts incredibly lively and lush colors. I was impressed, but I knew that most of the movie took place in the real world, so I was anticipating seeing what that was going to look like. As the movie turns from animation to live action, the colors become natural but still yield a pleasing vibrancy. The resolution and detail remains very sharp throughout the movie and lend themselves to the already enjoyable color palette. Darker sequences retain that same resolution and also had a nice depth to them. The transfer looked very three-dimensional and remained consistent through the length of the film.
Audio: I did not anticipate the audio presentation that this movie had to offer. Much like a lot of the normal Disney animated movies, this movie makes use of the full frequency spectrum. From the beginning of the movie straight through to the end, the viewers are presented with some fairly low LFE effects. Also given the setting of New York City, I did expect some ambiance effects to come through and there were plenty of instances of the “busy city”. The dynamic range was surprising, as well. There were a couple of action sequences as well as several musical numbers that allowed the dynamics to shine. Dialog remained intelligible throughout the movie.
Extras
There’s a feature called “D-Files” which enables the viewer to access hidden videos through playing an interactive trivia game. An interesting feature, but it’s geared more towards kids. There are also a couple featurettes, deleted scenes, bloopers, and a music video for the song “Ever, ever after”
Overall Impressions
I liked this movie a lot more than I expected. I had been told by many of my friends the very same thing, but still remained extremely skeptical. I am glad I did give this movie a chance because it surely is one of the best Disney movies I have seen in the last few years. Aside from my enjoyment of the movie itself, the video and audio aspects certainly added to my experience. Really though, it’s just icing on the cake because I think would’ve been just as satisfied with watching this movie on regular DVD. And those of you, who know me, know that is saying a lot. I encourage those interested to give this one a shot and those with a family, add this one to the collection.
