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 Director
: Mel Gibson
Starring
: Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan, Catherine
McCormack.
Picture
2.35:1 Anamorphic, DD 5.1, Dual-Layer 2-Disc, Keep Case
Running
Time : 171 mins
The
story:
Life
without freedom is no life at all.
The
story of William Wallace (Mel Gibson), a 13th century farmer
who emerged as Scotland's leader in its fight for independence
from the enforced English rule of Edward Longshanks (Patrick
McGoohan). Wallace had seen the English brutality firsthand
as they took away everything that he loved. But following
the murder of his young bride of 1-day, he feels enough
is enough and begins his journey that leads him to become
the hero of the Scottish rebellion. And straight into battle
with the English army..
The
summary:
This
epic saga has been a while coming to DVD and for good reason
- famed for the gloriously choreographed battle scenes throughout
it's three hours, the already memorable scenes were given
a facelift in the form of a digital remastering. That's
not to say it looked shoddy beforehand, but the studio's
realise that they have to go one step further to make the
DVD edition something special. Was it worth the effort?
Well although some may disagree, I firmly believe they are
the minority and the rest, like me, will relish the opportunity
to own this historic masterpiece.
This
is the story of a hero, William Wallace. Perhaps he wont
start out as one in your mind, but believe me - by the end
of the film you'll believe you have just watched the story
of a legend! Brutally graphic throughout, the battle scenes
are some of the most amazing every staged on film. The realism
is incredible and perhaps, from time to time, it does all
get a little too violent, but hey - that's what great battles
were like and Gibson makes no effort to back away from the
powerful and moving images of war. As well as directing
and producing Braveheart, Gibson also plays a magnificent
hero and likewise Patrick McGoohan revels in his role as
the evil-minded Edward I. In between the battles things
can slow at times, but never to the point of distracting
from the story and things soon begin to break into a gallop
as the next conflict commences. Some doubts have also been
raised as to how factual Braveheart actually is, and it's
obviously been given some of the box-office gloss but I
dont believe the basic story has been lost amongst all this.
This
audio and video on this DVD version is without a doubt the
best version to date, especially given the remastering.
The video is near perfect and the soundtrack is a very good
5.1 mix that's possibly just a little too soft in places.
What does come as a bit of a surprise though, is the apparent
lack of supplementary material on this Special Edition.
Despite the inclusion of a second disc, it seems devoid
of anything bar a sub-30 minute documentary! OK, the film
is nigh on 3 hours, but either leave off the documentary
or include something else with it! It hardly seems worth
the effort of swapping discs..
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Extras:
*
Audio Commentary - No prizes
for guessing the only voice on the commentary track - it's
the Actor/Producer/Director himself, Mel Gibson. Obviously
entitled to feel proud of himself, Mel goes to great lengths
to explain the work that went on behind the scenes and the
efforts made to make the wonderful battle scenes. The only
trouble is, Mel's monotone voice begins to tire after a
while and it all becomes rather dull. Perhaps the Shelia's
will find this more appealing..
*
Original Theatrical Trailer
Disc
Two:
*
Documentary - 'Braveheart:
A Filmmaker's Passion'. Surprisingly the only thing on disc
2 is this much shorter than anticipated behind-the-scenes
documentary. It's well made and looks good but considering
it's 28 mins run-time contains far too many scenes from
the film and not enough from behind. Could have been so
much better. If you're left wondering what the rest of the
disc was used for you can amuse yourself by re-watching
this and changing the audio to Czech, Danish, Finnish, Polish
etc etc etc..
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