Instead of Max Von Sydow as the wise old priest, The Unborn gives Gary Oldman a chance to ham it up some more as a doubtful rabbi (who teams up with his black Episcopalian priest friend to perform the film’s anti-climactic exorcism climax). Sadly, Gary isn’t in the movie as much as one would like him to be. A pity, too, since he’s the only other reason (apart from the numerous undie scenes) to see this movie — although you really shouldn’t see it, so just forget I said that.
As far as scares go, The Unborn goes with the amateur horror filmmaker trick of having something spooky happen every five or ten minutes. The formula goes like this: Casey walks around, talks to her friends, walks some more, looks in the mirror and *bam* — a fright pops up onscreen, complete with a scary orchestra hit. In lieu of there actually being something creepy to show you, a jump cut moves to something like a train passing by (complete with the same music cue). Repeat, gargle, rinse.
I would advise David S. Goyer to stick to his other works since he brought us Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but then I remember that he also wrote Jumper, the Blade series, and a couple of Van Damme films, too. So David, just stick to writing another Batman movie, OK? And don’t ask Akiva Goldsman for help, either. Or Michael Bay.
On Blu-ray, The Unborn looks great. The High Def 1080p VC-1 transfer has a sharp contrast and really brings out the colors — even if the movie’s color palate consists of blue, black, brown, and white. The accompanying DTS-HD Master Audio Lossless 5.1 track is a real eye-opener (especially when you consider the fact that the movie will flat-out put your tired and bored ass to sleep) and there are optional English SDH subtitles. Additional soundtracks (DTS 5.1) and subtitles are in Spanish, Quebec French, the real French, and German (what, no Yiddish?).
The selection of special features for The Unborn is as bad as the movie, but it’s of no consequence anyhow. Several deleted scenes are offered up, as well as the option to watch the film in the original theatrical PG-13 version or the “unrated” edition. The “unrated” version is supposed to contain scenes that were “too shocking for theaters,” a tagline that emerges on every “unrated” release these days. Put simply, kids: the money-grabbing moviemaking whores that are gypping you into paying for these turkeys take out a few seconds of the movie’s already tame PG-13 “sex” and “violence” and then reinsert it for DVD and Blu-ray so you’ll think you’re getting more bang for your buck. In actuality, you’re falling twice for the “fool me once, shame on you” bit.
Article comments