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WARNER

MOVIE INFO

Director:
David Frankel
Cast:
Will Smith, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet
Writing Credits:
Allan Loeb

Synopsis:
Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.

Box Office:
Budget
$36 million.
Opening Weekend
$7,102,085 on 3,028 Screens.
Domestic Gross
$31,016,021.

MPAA:
Rated PG-13.

DISC DETAILS
Presentation:
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Audio:
English DTS-HD MA 5.1
French Dolby 5.1
Latin Spanish Dolby 5.1
Portuguese Dolby 5.1
English Descriptive Audio
Subtitles:
English
Latin Spanish
French
Portuguese
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
English
French
Latin Spanish
Portuguese

Runtime: 96 min.
Price: $29.98
Release Date: 3/14/2017

Bonus:
• “A Modern Fable” Featurette
• Preview


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Panasonic TC-P60VT60 60-Inch 1080p 600Hz 3D Smart Plasma HDTV; Sony STR-DG1200 7.1 Channel Receiver; Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-Ray Player using HDMI outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Kenwood 1050SW 150-watt Subwoofer.

RELATED REVIEWS


Collateral Beauty [Blu-Ray] (2016)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (March 23, 2017)

From 1995 to 2008, Will Smith reigned as arguably the world’s biggest movie star. After late 2008’s Seven Pounds, though, Smith, took a three and a half year break from acting and he’s been unable to regain his prior prominence.

When he returned, 2012’s Men In Black 3 did fairly well, though it didn’t live up to expectations. 2016’s Suicide Squad also became a hit, but that seemed more due to the franchise itself than Smith, as I didn’t get the sense his presence buoyed box office receipts.

Outside of those two films, Smith’s post-2008 efforts have struggled to find an audience, and late 2016’s Collateral Beauty failed to alter than trajectory. Even with a relatively small $36 million budget, the movie didn’t appear to turn a profit, and it didn’t seem to do much to reinvigorate Smith’s career.

Going back to his rapping days as the Fresh Prince, I always liked Smith, so I hope he can get back on track. I also give him enough benefit of the doubt to plop Beauty in my player.

After a tragedy, successful ad executive Howard Inlet (Smith) goes inward and shuns society. To deal with his pain, Howard composes letters addressed to “Love”, “Time” and “Death”.

To Howard’s surprise, he receives responses, as physical manifestations of these concepts converse with him. Through these interactions, Howard attempts to work through his depression.

Look up “deceptive trailers” and you may find a reference to Beauty. If you watch the film’s ads, you’ll think that Howard encounters actual representations of Death, Time and Love, but that doesn’t seem to occur.

Instead, the movie tells us that actors portray Death, Time and Love. Howard’s business partners Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet) and Simon (Michael Pena) hire a private investigator (Ann Dowd), and she discovers the letters Howard sends. In an attempt to break Howard out of his funk, Whit comes up with the idea to hire people to portray Death (Helen Mirren), Love (Keira Knightley) and Time (Jacob Latimore).

Again, if you watch the trailers, you’ll never anticipate this shift, as the promos leave us with a clear impression that Beauty will go down a more literal Christmas Carol-style path. Granted, we can’t sense if Death, Time and Love are supposed to be real or in Howard’s head, but the ads don’t hint that they’ll come via actors.

The film itself can’t make up its mind either. I don’t want to risk spoilers, but Beauty wants to have its fantasy and eat it too, so expect a film that can’t decide what reality it wants to depict.

Really, Beauty tries to embrace both the “real world” and the more magical domain, choices that cause problems. If the film can’t adhere to its own rules, then the audience seems less likely to invest in it. All the questions related to the nature of Time, Death and Love harm the movie in the end.

This may seem like a minor gripe, but I think it gets to the heart of Beauty’s problems. The movie plays fast and loose with its sensibilities, so the viewer loses touch with it.

If we want to believe that we see actual human actors as Love, Death and Time, we find inconsistencies and problems. If we want to accept Love, Death and Time as physical constructs of those concepts, we encounter different but equally pernicious issues.

That’s because screenwriter Allan Loeb doesn’t appear to have given much thought to consistency or logic. He seems so enamored with his “clever” ideas that he never thinks about how they work in the real world.

Take the Sally the private investigator. She needs to be nearly magical to pull off her feats – and maybe she is a fictional construct, though unlike Time, Love and Death, the movie never even hints that she’s less than flesh and blood.

Assuming that we do accept Sally as real, she comes across as the slickest detective ever, and she performs questionable feats with aplomb. All of this furthers the flimsy plot but these activities threaten to detach the viewer from acceptable of the narrative.

Loeb’s script seems lazy and sloppy, as he refuses to pin down facets of the movie’s ideas and he selects illogical solutions to questions that can be solved in easier, more sensible ways. To get Howard’s letters, Sally manages to dig up a key that lets her illegally steal mail. I can think of other simpler, more believable ways for Howard’s partners to gain access to these missives, but Loeb chooses the least realistic of the bunch.

Perhaps Loeb hoped the viewer would become so distracted with these bizarre lapses in logic that the movie’s cheesiness and mawkishness would go by the wayside. Sentimental to an extreme, Beauty works relentlessly to prompt tears, but no actual feelings result, as the film’s ham-fisted stabs at emotion fall flat.

The movie’s inconsistent tone doesn’t help. Beauty seems oddly jaunty much of the time, as if it’s a comedy crammed into tearjerker status. Some comedic relief would be fine, but the film jumps all over the place, and its lack of stable emotional balance becomes yet another hindrance.

Many predictable plot points harm the project as well. Once again, I don’t want to get into spoilers, but a potentially major twist at the end shouldn’t surprise anyone. Beauty telegraphs its big finale in such an obvious way that the climax elicits more groans than tears.

At a mere 96 minutes, Beauty feels rushed and condensed. This especially impacts the characters, as we don’t get to know them as well as we should.

Beauty provides a token glimpse of Howard and company pre-tragedy, but that’s not enough to establish their personalities. If we had more time with Howard and the others, we’d care more about their journeys, but the film rushes matters and leaves us detached from the roles.

The movie does boast an excellent cast, and they threaten to add a little spark to the proceedings – honestly, any pleasure that comes from Beauty relates to the actors. However, they can only do so much, and they can’t overcome the badly flawed script given to them.

Packed with cheap emotion and little honesty, Collateral Beauty doesn’t do much right. Aspects of the project show promise but the end result sputters and fails to find firm footing.


The Blu-ray Grades: Picture A-/ Audio B-/ Bonus C-

Collateral Beauty appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Across the board, the transferred looked great.

Sharpness was very good. Virtually no softness materialized, so definition seemed solid. I noticed no jagged edges or moiré effects, and the presentation lacked apparent edge haloes or other artifacts. I also saw no print flaws, as the movie always seemed clean.

In terms of colors, Beauty reflected Hollywood’s modern fascination with orange and teal. As tedious as that has become, the colors looked fine within the design parameters. In addition, blacks were dark and tight, while low-light shots were smooth and clear. This was a terrific presentation.

Though not as good, the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack seemed more than acceptable. The soundfield focused on music and ambience, though it opened up a bit on occasion. Nothing especially memorable occurred, though.

Audio quality was fine. Speech seemed natural and concise, without edginess or other issues.

Music offered good clarity and range, and effects worked well enough. They didn’t have much to do, but they appeared reasonably accurate. All of this ended up as a perfectly satisfactory soundtrack for a character movie.

A Modern Fable: Discovering Collateral Beauty runs 15 minutes, three seconds. The featurette provides comments from writer Allan Loeb, producer Anthony Bregman, director David Frankel, and actors Will Smith, Edward Norton, Naomie Harris, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Kate Winsley, Michael Pena and Jacob Latimore.

“Fable” examines the project’s origins, story/characters, cast and performances, shooting in New York, and connected domains. Though not the most substantial program, “Fable” presents a decent array of thoughts and becomes a serviceable overview of the production.

The disc opens with an ad for Wonder Woman (2017). No trailer for Beauty appears here.

Despite a moderately promising premise, Collateral Beauty fails to engage. The story forces whimsy on us and its inconsistent tone becomes an issue. The Blu-ray provides excellent visuals as well as acceptable audio and minor supplements. Even with a strong cast, the movie sputters.

Viewer Film Ratings: 2.6666 Stars Number of Votes: 3
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