Stars:
Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Robbie Coltrane, Ian Holm, Ian McNeice,
Jason Flemying, Lesley Sharp, Susan Lynch, Katrin Cartridge, Terence Harvey,
Annabelle Apsion, and Ian Richardson,
Writers: Rafael Yglesias and Terry Hayes
Adapted
From The Graphic Novel By: Allen Moore and Eddie Campbell
Director:
Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes
Feature
length: 121 minutes
Extras:
Feature Length Audio Commentary By Directors Albert and Allen Hughes,
Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias,
Cinematographer Peter Deming, and Actor Robbie Coltrane, Alternate Ending and 20
Deleted Scenes With Optional Audio Commentary By Albert Hughes, Jack The Ripper:
6 Degrees Of Separation Interactive Investigation, A View From Hell: HBO
Featurette Hosted By Heather Graham, Tour Of The Murder Sites: Hosted By The
Hughes Brothers, Behind-The-Scenes Featurette Hosted By Production Designer
Martin Childs, Absinthe Makes The Hear Grow Fonder Featurette, Graphic
Novel-To-Film Comparison, Theatrical Trailers
Languages:
English DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound, English Dolby Digital 5.1
Surround Sound, and French and Spanish Dolby Surround Sound 2.0
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions
Packaging:
2-Disc Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 32
Sound:
DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, and
Stereo Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 2001/DVD Release: 2002
Theatrical
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Home
Video Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Adapted from the 1999 graphic novel by Allen Moore and Eddie Campbell, “From Hell” is a dramatization of the investigation and controversy surrounding the 1888 murders of several women in the Whitechapel section of London. Johnny Depp is an investigator with some degree of clairvoyance that assists him in solving his cases and is amplified when he ingests opium. Heather Graham is one of many potential targets for “Jack The Ripper,” who assists Depp’s character in the investigation, which points in a number of directions involving the wealthy aristocracy and the Freemasons and a scandalous cover-up.
The
film is somber and bleak as well as disturbing. It also is another example of
the talent Albert and Allen Hughes have as filmmakers as they transcend their
previous films to create a movie that is at the same time very much a story that
takes place in a disenfranchised area of London and involves characters who live
and interact with that area from all the levels of society and the film also
transcends their previous films by dealing with a period setting with some
fictional characters surrounding a terrible real life horror.
Twentieth
Century Fox Home Entertainment’s “Limited Director’s Edition” DVD
features an excellent anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) transfer preserving the
aspect ratio of the original theatrical exhibition. The transfer captures the
monotone muted colors that much of the film was presented in with occasional
bursts of reds and greens during some surreal vision sequences. The DVD handles
the foggy atmosphere quite well and the print is clear and free of grain and
artifacts. The transfer is also THX certified complete with the THX Optimizer®
program for picture and sound system calibration. An aggressive English DTS
Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Soundtrack is also included along with a
well-mixed English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack and French and Spanish
Language Dolby Surround Soundtracks are encoded on to the DVD as well along with
English Captions and Closed Captions as options. I found the DTS track to be the
more discrete with a higher fidelity than the Dolby Digital Soundtrack.
There
is also a feature length audio commentary track with Directors Albert and Allen
Hughes, Screenwriter Rafael Yglesias,
Cinematographer Peter Deming, and Actor Robbie Coltrane. At times I found it
difficult to tell which Hughes brother was talking because there voices sound so
alike to me so to say exactly who said what would be nearly impossible so
between the two brothers I got the impression that the film was definitely an
experience of growth for them both personally and professionally and they
comment very candidly on this history of the project, the difference between the
point of view shift from the graphic novel to the feature film, and working with
the talent and so on. Rafael Yglesias also very articulate in his description of
adapting the screenplay from previous drafts and the graphic novel as well as
avoiding clichés. Robbie Coltrane steps in here and there with a comment or two
and as a whole this is a very good screen specific as well as retrospective
audio commentary track.
Disc
one also feature 20 deleted scenes and an alternate scene, which can be watched
individually or all together in succession and features an optional audio
commentary track by Director Albert Hughes. The scenes are presented with black
and white footage from the final cut book marked so one would know from watching
where the scenes would fit in without necessarily listening to the commentary
track. The scenes are presented in a very good quality (2.35:1) aspect ratio
with English Stereo Sound and individually run as short as 17-seconds to over
2-minutes in length and all together have an approximate length of nearly
19-minutes.
The rest of the extra features are on the second disc. They begin with the documentary “Jack The Ripper: 6 Degrees Of Separation.” This documentary shows actual newspaper clips and photographs from the era and demonstrates the level of authenticity the filmmakers put into recreating the Whitechapel section of London circa 1888 for the movie and at the same time elaborates on the number of official and unofficial suspects theorized to have been possibly involved in the murders. An interesting part to the documentary is that at certain moments a magnifying glass appears that enables the viewer to see scenes from an early, but in some ways more graphic by description if not more haunting documentary on the murders and then after the clip ends, one returns back to the new documentary where they left off. There are about 8 clips from this older documentary, which has not aged well picture wise, but never the less it greatly enhances the scope of the investigation into the controversy behind the notorious murders. The clips run between just over a minute and up to nearly 6-minutes and collectively add an additional 23-minutes to the 30-minute length of the documentary. I highly recommend watching the documentary and taking the extra time to explore these extra clips since they enhance and compliment each other and the feature film as well. The documentary even holds up “Alice In Wonderland” Author Lewis Carroll as a possible suspect.
Other featurettes include a “Behind-The-Scenes” featurette with Production Designer Martin Childs with a running time of approximately 12-minutes and a tour of the recreated the Whitechapel section of London as built in Prague and hosted by the Hughes Brothers that runs nearly 8-minutes. There is also a “Graphic Novel-To-Film Comparison” that shows both the differences between the film and the book in terms of point of view as well as some of the styling of the completed film shots inspired by the book with an approximate running time of 10-minutes. There is even a 10-minute featurette entitled “Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder,” which is interesting even on it’s own as well as the 15-minute HBO featurette “A View From Hell” hosted by Heather Graham. A (1.85:1) theatrical trailer for “From Hell” as well as a (1.33:1) trailer for the Adrian Lyne film “Unfaithful” wraps up the extra features on the second DVD. Both discs are dual layered and the menus are completely animated with wild full motion transitions and all of the interactive menus are easy to navigate.
“From Hell: Director’s Limited Edition” DVD is excellent and will debut from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Tuesday, May 12, 2002. Don’t miss it.
© Copyright 2002
By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.