- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
- Subtitles: English HOH
- Region: B (Region-Locked)
- Certification: U
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray )
- Studio: Miramax/StudioCanal (UK)
- Run Time:
- Blu-ray Release Date: September 19, 2011
- RRP: £24.99
[amazon-product region=”uk” tracking_id=”bluraydefinit-21″]B005EWPQ6C[/amazon-product]
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Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Starting in the TV era, Jane Austen has just been a cash cow for the boardroom executives. She has rivaled Shakespeare and Dickens for the number of adaptations of her works that have been done. Numerous mini-series have cluttered the airwaves on both sides of the pond. Starting in the 90’s, Austen hit the big screen in a big way, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, not to mention modernizations of her work like Clueless, based on Emma, and From Prada to Nada, based on Sense & Sensibility.
Emma is a romantic comedy of manners set in the English countryside of the 1800s. It follows the young Emma Woodhouse (Gwyneth Paltrow) who is fond of playing cupid for her friends, especially her friend Harriet (Toni Collette) and hr governess Mrs. Weston (Greta Scacchi). Her matchmaking skills aren’t quite as good as he thinks they are, causing more problems than Emma (or her friends) can cope. She also seems inept at making her own love match, totally oblivious to the love staring her right in the face in the young Mr. Knightly (Jeremy Northam).
The film has the typically lavish set design and costumes of period piece and a light, humorous tone that makes it pleasant to watch. Paltrow slides easily into the role of Emma and is rather charming, but it is Toni Collette who really steals their scenes together.
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Emma has been brought to Blu-ray with a minimum of effort put into the transfer from StudioCanal. The AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24 encodement is obviously using an old master and right from the outset, the film is plagued with soft detail and spotty source damage like dust and scratches that pop up often. Blacks also tend to crush. It’s really a shame they couldn’t have done more with this, because there is so much going on in the luxuriant set designs and lavish costumes that a better transfer could have brought out.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
As the video transfer goes, so goes the sound, with a simple LPCM 2.0 Stereo mix provided as the sole audio option – and that’s it. It sounds decent enough if a bit dull and a little bit narrow. Dialogue is intelligible at least.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
This is a barebones disc with nothing but the original theatrical trailer (1.33:1; PAL) provided as a “supplement.”
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
This pleasant film is taken down a notch by the underwhelming transfer to Blu-ray by StudioCanal that fails to take advantage of the costumes and set design and presents a soft, grainy image plagued with source damage, a barebones disc with no true supplements, and a simple LPCM stereo audio mix.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product region=”uk” tracking_id=”bluraydefinit-21″]B005EWPQ6C[/amazon-product]
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.co.uk
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
–
