ENTRAPMENT SPECIAL EDITION DVD Image A Sound A- Extras B

Buy At Amazon USA Buy at Amazon Canada or Compare Prices March, 2000|The announcement of an Entrapment Special Edition DVD came as somewhat of a surprise to me not only because the film hardly deserves the deluxe treatment, but also since I realized its release would mark the third time I've written of the cartoonish caper in eleven months. I don't have much to add this time around as far as its cinematic worth (or lack thereof) is concerned, though I will say, after multiple viewings, I've developed a real fondness for Entrapment. It is an unpretentious how-to heist movie that makes great use of its exotic locations; I'm only tempted to toss popcorn at the screen during Ving Rhames' scenes, for his thuggish American persona seems out of place in the opulent mise-en-scène. (It's not his fault, he was drawn that way.) Much debate transpired on usenet over the quality of the previous, non-anamorphic transfer--it had suited me just fine. This new Entrapment boasts of stunning, 16x9-enhanced video, letterboxed at 2.35:1; even on my 4:3 television, I noticed a substantial improvement in shadow detail and fewer compression artifacts (it helps that the 113-minute film has now been wider spread across a dual layered disc). Colour quality remains the same but saturation has been increased; the royal blue of Zeta-Jones' ski jacket is now eye-poppingly intense (and slightly smeared as a result). The other primaries follow this pattern. Based on this remaster, I'm downgrading my Video Rating for the unenhanced Entrapment from an "A-" to a "B." (Sound remains the same: Entrapment is standard DD 5.1 and Dolby Surround fare; the only real fireworks (literal and figurative) exist in the final act. Surrounds support the music by versatile Christopher Young and are underused for atmosphere.) A terrific animated menu (Fox's specialty) enables access to a handful of extra features as well as the usual language and chapter options. The coolest aspect of this interface, modeled after the museum containing the Chinese mask, is the option of viewing it normally, through night vision goggles, or as a stripped-down 3-D mock-up. A lot of energy went into the main screen and I only wish the sub-menus were as fun to explore. Bonus material includes a pair of trailers (the first one is more enticing), five television spots, a thirteen-minute featurette, a director's commentary, and three deleted scenes. The latter are absent of dialogue, containing only sound effects (plus optional commentary by Jon Amiel for two of them). I must say that the omission of an elaborate (if stiffly shot) car chase surprised me, as it looked expensive and producers don't generally like to cut the big production numbers, while I agree that a hotel room encounter (prior to the one in which Gin and Mac first meet) would've ground proceedings to a halt. An alternative ending proves enlightening, as the outcome is the same but the tone is very different--softer, subtler. The British Amiel's dialogue during the film itself is very pleasant. An agreeable speaker, the director establishes up front that he will attempt to reveal the secrets behind the movie's magic, as cinephiles are liable to be the only ones listening. (Did you know that most of the burglary tools employed by Gin are authentic?) He is less talkative as Entrapment wears on, but when he does speak, he avoids regurgitating the plot and concentrates on the details, which is a welcome change from many on-the-fly commentaries of late. Cast and crew bios (the non-inclusion of a trailer for Connery's other Fox picture, Rising Sun, demonstrates an unusual absence of studio synergy) finish off the set, which I recommend to fans. By the way, Sean Connery dubbed into French is endlessly amusing.-BC 113 minutes. Aspect Ratio(s) 2.35:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced; Languages English DD 5.1, English Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround; CC Yes; Subtitles English, Spanish; DVD-9; Region One; Fox

The Welsh-born Catherine Zeta-Jones is a glamourpuss, and a vague ethnicity (is she Spanish? Greek? Irish?) gives her beauty an exotic hook, but does she have what it takes to be a movie star? The jury's still out, I'm afraid, for while the actress has appeared in three box-office successes back-to-back-to-back, these pictures were marketed on their concepts, not her name. Her looks will be enough to carry her through a few more supporting roles as an object of desire, but if she has real acting chops and/or breakout potential, they have thus far been squandered in American cinema.

The trio of films, by the way, consists of The Mask of Zorro and the new-to-DVD titles Entrapment and The Haunting. I suppose I think Entrapment, in which Sean Connery plays a prototypically suave yet cranky action hero, the best of them. Connery's Mac, a notorious robber baron, takes Zeta-Jones, as rookie thief Virginia "Gin" Baker, under his wing. She wants to help him steal a priceless Chinese mask; with her dexterity and his cunning, the two form a dynamic duo. I should mention at this point that Gin is a double agent, if you will--she's also working for the treasury to bring Mac down. Her tutelage stinks of ruse.

Sean Connery is permitted use of his native accent in Entrapment (or, as Connery pronounces it, 'Entchraphmint') while Zeta-Jones is not. She has been saddled with a bland dialect despite her character's European loveliness and worldly ways, and it doesn't help that Zeta-Jones is no Meryl Streep when it comes to vocal gymnastics. But then, most viewers (male, at least) probably won't even notice that Zeta-Jones' curly lips are even moving as they watch her slink between security devices like a hungry feline (she's a cat-burglar, ha-ha). Zeta-Jones is adept at real gymnastics. Her impeccable physique takes centre stage in a film that elevates thievery to performance art.

Twenty minutes into Entrapment, you realize what kind of movie you're watching: red herring after red herring is thrown at the audience, each one contradicting the last--it's the Chinese box method of plotting, and as such, the script is full of holes. (Without giving too much away, would a major international bank really delay Y2K integrity tests until the stroke of midnight, New Year's Day 2000?) Yet Entrapment is not nearly as frustrating as the similarly realized Wild Things, which unwrapped its bandages only to reveal the Invisible Man beneath them. (Entrapment, unlike Wild Things, is not out to deconstruct a genre through brazenly random story developments--for all its twists and turns, the picture builds to a conventional solution.)

One element of Entrapment does remain pleasantly constant, or consistently pleasant, throughout. That would be the bizarre tango between Connery and Zeta-Jones. Whatever their motivations, a mutual affection is clear from their first encounter. (Note the phallic imagery the first time Mac meets Gin--she is naked in this scene, and his gun provides an amusing and subtle sight gag.) Although their banter and romantic chemistry don't quite conjure memories of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, the two actors achieve a level of intimacy that Clint Eastwood only struggled to with his young female co-stars in the recent True Crime. (I mention Eastwood--who is close in age and stature to Connery--to address the May-December nineties trend: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The time may be nigh for both men to admit their age on screen, as Beatty did in Bulworth.)

(Aside: Entrapment notably includes a freakish performance from Canadian actor Maury Chaykin, who invests his bit part (as a Confuscious-quoting guru to thieves) with a ferocious energy that recalls early Nicolas Cage.)

Entrapment director Jon Amiel has had a spotty career; his Copycat, for one, is a series of missed or botched opportunities. The set-pieces in Entrapment are not lacking in visual flair, but that's about all you can say for Amiel's journeyman work. I felt that the break-and-enter sequences in Brian DePalma's Mission: Impossible were the best things in it; Entrapment's are similarly thrilling. For the Chinese Mask number (which left me breathless), the filmmakers may have stumbled upon a new sport: laser ballet. I also enjoyed the extensive training between Mac and Gin: movies of this ilk rarely acknowledge the rehearsals that take place before the main event.

Zeta-Jones is the best special-effect in the computer graphics-laden The Haunting, Jan De Bont's blockbuster-wannabe whose tagline goes "Some houses are born bad"--to which I am forced to add, "Some movies, too." Nothing short of hiring a new cast, a more (or less) literate screenwriter, and a smarter director could have saved this tragically misguided adaptation of Shirley Jackson's meritorious novel. The Haunting is summer dreck too slick to be creepy; its seemingly endless stream of digital trickery and spooky ooky sound effects don't frighten so much as numb the audience into submission. The film is a Rube Goldberg contraption rigged to shout "boo."

Fragile Nell (Lili Taylor), bisexual Theo (Zeta-Jones as every guy's fantasy: the lipstick lesbian), and smiley Luke (Owen Wilson)--insomniacs, all--gather at the reputedly possessed Hill House for an extended study on sleep disorders. Professor Marrow (Liam Neeson), the host, is secretly collecting data on their respective responses to his campfire ghost stories regarding the mansion in which they're staying, ill prepared for the very real apparitions that begin to terrorize his subjects--Nell especially. It seems that she has some ancestral connection to the manor's previous inhabitants.

Taylor is insufferably plastic in her first big-budget lead. For starters, her dour expression sucks the life out of the early scenes, when we're introduced to the mansion and its fun-house trappings. Nell is supposed to be depressed, having tended to an unloving mother for too many years (incontestably out-of-character, Nell characterizes this experience with enthusiasm: "I was in purgatory, for eleven years!" she brags in a lispy cheer), but Taylor plays Nell as supernaturally lame, alternately grouchy, mopey, wiggy and pathetic, and--as Eddie Murphy once lamented of the family's attachment to the little girl in Poltergeist ("She's only six years old!")--I kept wondering why the other characters didn't ditch this bitch off the bat.

As for Ms. Zeta-Jones, she breezes through her scenes with a wink and a smile and takes the scenery with her. Unfortunately, she's asked to speak the most unlikely dialogue that The Haunting's screenplay has to offer. Theo's assessment of the house? "I love it! Sort of Charles Foster Kane meets 'The Munsters'." Who on Earth would say that in place of "Citizen Kane meets The Munsters"? Or Xanadu meets "The Munsters", for that matter. (Furthermore, would you eagerly spend a single night in a house befitting that description?)

Neeson, saddled with an inexplicable character, looks embarrassed from the start. As Luke puts it, Dr. Marrow pulls "the old academic bait and switch" on his subjects, but he breaks down and confesses to this the second he's accused. Later, he risks his life by climbing a crumbling stairwell to save Nell (it's amusing to hear Neeson shout "Nell" repeatedly, given his starring role in the 1994 Jodie Foster vehicle of the same name)--why was this nice, helpful, and immediately redemptive researcher so absent of ethics at the start?

The Haunting sports luxurious production design by Eugenio Zanetti. His sets are obsessively detailed--even before the overwrought CGI kicks in, they seem alive, never quite still. I do have one beef with this aspect of the production: the real life mansion used in exterior shots, Nottinghamshire's Harlaxton Manor, is so vast that one sits there doubting the beleaguered heroes' tendency to always finish up a chase in one of the few locations established early on. It's as if the action has been confined to a single wing of the building.

Eighty million dollars was burned-up by The Haunting. Proving for the third time, after Twister and Speed 2, that the original Speed was a stars-in-alignment phenomenon, De Bont has served up another ride sans thrill. His images, while handsome (he's a former cinematographer, after all), have an unmistakable been there-done that quality. Whole sequences, in fact--not to mention the cloaked, airy ghoul that rules the climax--feel lifted from a much smarter and infinitely more enjoyable spectacle from three years back, Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. I don't mean to suggest De Bont is a plagiarist, just that he's a hack, having discovered not a single fresh way to send a chill up our collective spine.

I have to give the edge to DreamWorks' The Haunting over Fox's Entrapment as far as DVD is concerned, for it contains more supplemental material. In terms of image quality, I actually preferred the latter, though owners of widescreen TVs will surely disagree, since Entrapment lacks anamorphic enhancement. Letterboxed at 2.35:1, both, The Haunting's detail is wanting--in the darkest scenes, Taylor's hair is a sea of brown, while Entrapment is crisp at all times and has better contrast, too. Colours and fleshtones seem truer on The Haunting, though. These discs are likely to impress casual watchers of digital video, but I wouldn't characterize either as being of reference quality... Except in terms of sound.

Unidentified on the cover art, The Haunting is presented in THX Surround EX for home use. To listen to this track, you'll require a THX-certified Dolby Digital receiver, an inexpensive EX decoder, and extra satellite speakers for the rears. (For a detailed explanation of THX Surround EX and other methods of upgrade visit The DVD File's informative spread.) Lucky for me and other owners of basic DD equipment, the THX Surround EX track (technically 6.1) is folded back into 5.1 for standard DD presentation.

The Haunting's DD 5.1 track is heavy on unmotivated bass and a showpiece for it. The LFE channel reached some of the lowest octaves I've ever heard from my subwoofer, especially in chapter 17, "Bump in the Night." Surround use is plentiful throughout, much of it split between the two rears in true six-track fashion. It comes as no surprise that Gary Rydstrom--sound designer of Saving Private Ryan and A Bug's Life--mixed The Haunting: the film would be even less involving without his award-worthy participation. (Entrapment is standard DD 5.1 and Dolby Surround fare; the only real fireworks (literal and figurative) exist in the final act. Surrounds support the music and are underused for atmosphere.)

The Haunting is one of the studio's Signature Selections, yet it barely qualifies as a special edition. (The same number of extras can be found on DreamWorks' Saving Private Ryan DVD, which is not afforded the Signature label.) In addition to two theatrical trailers, a teaser and a standard (each in 5.1), one can access from The Haunting's well-animated menu cast and crew bios, plus a half-hour long making-of documentary that unfortunately doesn't cover the good stuff--how the sets and F/X were accomplished--until the last few minutes. Still, it's hosted by Catherine Zeta-Jones, a bonus in and of itself. The Entrapment disc also includes a trailer, in 2.0, and its menus are almost as cool as The Haunting's.-Bill Chambers