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Adam Duncan reviews
DVD double-pack
20th Century Fox
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 01983 DVD
- Running time: 191 minutes
- Year: 1986/1989
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 24/24 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish,Finnish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Icelandic.
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Trailers, Behind the Scenes (The Fly), The Making Of The Fly II,Cast and crew interviews.
In 1986, David Cronenberg released his remake of the 1958 film, The Flyand gave it his own unique version. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) has inventeda new form of transportation: Telepods. With this invention, nobody willever be car sick, air sick, sea sick or even tricyle sick again. Just oneproblem – they can only transport inanimate objects. With the help ofjournalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), he gets it right and the pairfall in love.
One night, Ronnie (her nickname) pays a visit to her boss and ex-boyfriendStathis Borans (John Getz) over an article that he has taken credit for.Mistaking this for cheating on him, Seth goes in the telepods himself. But,he doesn’t spot the fly inside the pod….
The Fly II contiues where The Fly left off and is about Seth’s son, Martin(Eric Stoltz) who is looked after by Seth’s old company, Bartok Industries,led by Bartok (Lee Richardson).He continues his father’s work in perfecting the telepods and has arelationship with one of the company’s employees, Beth Logan (DaphneZuniga).
But his dormant insect genes soon start to kick in and Martin starts histransformation into a fly. But he is determined to find a cure before it’stoo late.
Out of the two films, The Fly is the best. The acting is excellentparticulary from Jeff Goldblum, the script is good and the oscar winningmake-up effects are very good and suitably gory. The Fly II is still anenjoyable film but it’s just not as good as the first film.
Both films are in their original 1.85:1 ratio and look great. The Fly looksalmost flawless. There are very little picture problems and everything isclear and detailed. The Fly II also looks very good but not quite as TheFly.
Both films are presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and sound pretty good. The Flyis the better sounding of the two. Howard Shore’s music gets the mostbenefit here but there are some surround effects particulary towards theend. The Fly II’s audio is also good but the music benefits from the mixit sounds very similiar to the music used inHellraiser.In fact, it’s by the same composer, Christopher Young).
Both films have the same extras:
The Fly
- Trailer: Presented in 1.33:1 and lasting nearly 2 minutes, this trailergives away quite a bit of the film and also uses a 80’s synthesiser scorethat isn’t too bad.
- Behind The Scenes: A 6½-minute featurette which containsinterviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Although it is rather short, thereis some interesting info included such as an explanation of how the sceneswith Seth crawling on the ceiling were acheived.
- Interviews: These are additional interviews from the cast and crew. Theyinclude producer Stuart Cornfield ( 0:16 ), David Cronenberg ( 2:14 ), JeffGoldblum ( 2:23 ), Geena Davis ( 2:01 ) and Chris Walas ( 0:55 ). Some ofthe footage is repeated from the featurette but conatins some additionalinsight such as Cronenberg expalining about how he got in the business andGoldbum’s recollections in make-up.
The Fly 2
- Trailer: Presented in 1.33:1, this trailer lasts just over a minute.
- The Making Of The Fly II: This is a 5 minute featurette whichcontains some nice behind-the-scenes footage and interviews.
- Interviews: These are additional interviews and include Eric Stoltz( 0:56 ), Chris Walas ( 0:58 ), Daphe Zuniga ( 1:08 ), Lee Richardson( 1:11 ) and Steven Charles Jaffe ( 1:18 ).Unlike the interviews on The Fly disc, none of these are taken from thefeaturette.
Overall, a pretty good package. The films are good especially the first, thepicture is great, the sound is good and the extras are a nice bonus. If youcan get this at a good price, then I recommend a purchase.
THE FLY 2
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.