Stars:
Kane Hodder, David Cronenberg, and Lexa Doig
Writer:
Todd Farmer
Director:
Jim Isaac
Extras:
Filmmaker’s Commentary, Jump A Kill, The Many Lives Of Jason Voorhees, By Any
Means Necessary, Theatrical Trailers
Languages:
English DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround,
and Dolby Surround Sound 2.0
Subtitles:
English Captions & Closed Captions
Chapter
Stops: 26
Sound:
DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, and Dolby
Surround Sound 2.0
Year
of Theatrical Release: 2002/DVD Release: 2002
Theatrical
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Home
Video Distributor: New Line Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
In
the year 2010 notorious mass murderer Jason Voorhees was cryogenically frozen in
the midst of an emergency lockdown. In the year 2455 a group of anthropology
students accidentally discovered the frozen body in stasis along with the
preserved body of a young woman. Shuttling back to the to their transport
vessel, the bodies of both specimens were bought back to consciousness.
Immediately Jason Voorhees started making up for lost time by dispatching nearly
every person aboard the ship as well as caused mass destruction to the Solaris
space station. It appears that information regarding the true state of Jason
Voorhees had been classified in the early 21st century and due to
blind greed, his subsequent reawakening was kept a secret until it was too late
to contain Voorhees and safely evacuate the ship. Is Jason still alive? I think
the question should be is Jason dead?
The
answer is of course not for as long as people are interested in seeing the tall,
dark, and silent horror icon on another spree of carnage. “Jason X” is
perhaps the most accessible “Jason” film since it pretty much tells it’s
own self-contained adventure without ignoring the previous films in the series
because the film immediately distances itself anyway just with the premise. The
“Jason” in space works better too than previous franchises who have done
their own character in space stories. The virtual camp Crystal Lake sequence
ranks as one of the series funniest moments and the space setting gives the
filmmakers a chance to come up with some more creative ways of killing off
teenagers.
Kane
Hodder reprises his signature character “Jason” giving more humanity to the
inhumane killer through subtle body movements and a type of exasperated
appearance expressed through the eyes as if Jason is getting tired and pissed
off with every delay that occurs that prevents him from killing everybody. Lexa
Doiga (Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda) is our chick thawed from the point of
certain death to provide us with a window into the future while writer Todd
Farmer and Canadian Genre Auteur David Cronenberg make memorable cameos.
“Jason
X” is by far the best looking of the “Jason” flicks to be released to DVD
yet mostly because of the way the film was produced. “Jason X” was shot on
film, transferred to high definition video and tweaked, and then transferred
back to film. As a result the DVD transfer is flawless and the film has a
wonderful color quality that none of the previous films in the series come close
to with an anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) aspect ratio. Exciting and
aggressively well-rounded English DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround, Dolby
Digital 5.1 Surround, and Dolby Surround 2.0 Soundtracks are encoded on to the
DVD along with English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing impaired as
options. Director Jim Isaac and Todd Farmer give a fun and screen specific
feature length audio commentary as well.
Extra
features include “The Many Lives Of Jason Voorhees” (29:52), an excellent
overview over the history of the entire “Friday” phenomenon, “By Any Means
Necessary: The Making Of Jason X” (17:28), a jump a death sequence which gets
to all the killings individually or as one reel, and widescreen 5.1 trailers for
“Jason X,” “Blade II,” “Final Destination,” and “A Nightmare On
Elm Street.”
I usually use a Pioneer DV-414 DVD-Video
Player to screen discs and this is the first time I have ever encountered
problems of this nature. On “Jason X” the extra "All Access Pass" features
were completely inaccessible when I tried to view them. I then screened the film on my alternate player, a newer, but low budget Daewoo DVG 3000N. On this
player "Jason X" worked fine and without any problems, which was how I was
able to complete writing the review. So I called New Line to ask
if they were aware of possible incompatibility problems with older players on
the disc. To their credit they sent me overnight final product versions so I
could verify if this was a glitch or something else.
Unfortunately the package arrived empty
and opened while I was out to lunch so the person who accepted the package for
me on my behalf, my own father, did not notice the package had been opened
already prior to delivery and the contents stolen because he is legally blind
and cannot make very quick distinctions like this visually. The courier was
completely ineffectual with locating the missing merchandise and if the thief is ever caught, I hope he gets justice Jason style
for putting me in this embarrassing situation.
New Line thankfully sent me final versions for both "Jason Goes To Hell" and "Jason X" again, which arrived this morning. I tested both. There were no problems with "Jason Goes To Hell" on the final product version, but the problem I encountered on "Jason X" still existed. I believe it is more or less a firmware problem related to my Pioneer player and not a software problem because it worked fine on my other player. So if anyone has an old DVD player they might want to rent "Jason X" first, but otherwise I think this is overall a great entry in the series and the best DVD of a Jason film to be released yet, save the possible firmware issue of course. There are no problems with "Jason Goes To Hell." It looked, sounded, and worked perfectly well. Both "Jason Goes To Hell" and "Jason X: New Line Platinum Series" will debut on DVD-Video on Tuesday, October 8, 2002 from New Line Home Entertainment.
© Copyright 2002 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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Read The DVD Review Of "Friday The Thirteenth: Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan"
Read The DVD Review Of "Jason Goes To Hell"