"A number of the puzzles in Ace Attorney rely on Japanese wordplay or some nugget of common cultural knowledge that would completely stump those not familiar with those traditions or conventions."Īn example is the stained karuta cards in Spirit of Justice, a type of playing card that Nintendo themselves made. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more."The biggest hurdle for me is making sure that the puzzles and mysteries are solvable for a Western audience," said Hsu. This has not affected the editorial process. The only other feature? An app for your phone or tablet that syncs with the movie for script comparison or other time wasters.įull disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. If you’re not willing to sit through the entire film to see featurettes (although you can skip to each section using chapter search kudos), seven focus points on the main menu will take you to the important stuff for 35-minutes worth of content. Warner includes their short-lived “Maximum Movie Mode,” this one hosted by Robert Downey Jr. ExtrasĮverything is held on the Blu-ray, the same disc the studio previously released. Same goes for gun and cannon fire, sufficient, but unremarkable. Bomb explosions rumble, if limited in their depth. A lighthouse collapse needs significantly deeper response. Lackluster output happens in the low-end, unable to sustain power, even in the few moments where scale is imperative. Major action scenes spread bullets and debris, utilizing discrete separation to put these characters in danger. London sounds alive when streetside, totally convincing. Porting the DTS-HD mix from the Blu-ray, a 5.1 soundstage keeps this material lively. Encoding works the grain structure to maintain image integrity. Black crush saps shadow details, only partially though. Digital exteriors sell the era convincingly, added resolution only bettering that work. Bold definition resolves excellent facial texture. There’s small gain in depth from the HD presentation, if unnoticeable outside of direct comparison.īeing an upscale, the sharpness wanes a little, although there’s more firmness here than in Sherlock Holmes. Soon, sepia turns dominant, shifting to blue as night falls. Interiors excel at finding pasty hues, fitting to the time, while still playing with a sepia push. Same with saturation, which at first brings a little vibrancy. Expect no HDR pop, and minimal jump over the Blu-ray. The whole movie is low contrast (even too dim) the best brightness coming from a few flames, primarily candlelight. Pure black is uncommon (at best), falling off into murkier gray or even deep blues, scene dependent. Notably, black levels routinely under perform as to give Game of Shadows a seedier aesthetic. Thick color grading dictates a lot of the visual power in this transfer. Turns out, the war is happening, and it’s these two determining the outcome – or who profits. Both Downey and Harris hovered near 50 in 2011, so the stage is only a chess match, more metaphorical than competitive, moving soldiers around like politicians settling scores. The eventual pay-off works because it’s not a fight. Viewers become Holmes because the camera lets them, even if the clues seems utterly random. Sluggish and same-y as it feels, Game of Shadows shines in wasting no minuscule detail. In the backdrop of European political unrest, that’s what these two represent, shrewd leaders unwilling to show their hand, yet cross-examining their likely opponents, hunting for advantage. The best stuff comes twice in Game of Shadows, a pair of scenes between Downey and Harris as they slickly play one another, carefully testing wits and words in a sensationally smart tease. Credit to the undervalued Noomi Rapace too, a gypsy lured into this plot, inadvertently creating an investigative trio.Įxplosions and bullets wane, even with some sharp slow motion appreciating the visual possibilities. Downey and Law act out an entertaining camaraderie, enough to help with sagging pacing. Their friendship and growing (but accepted) irritation with one another provides the studio template on which A Game of Shadows is built. This isn’t a glossy, perfect movie star Holmes screws up, he’s injured, and those bullets seem awfully close.īeing at a disadvantage raises stress levels, adding to the buddy genre’s back-and-forth between Holmes and Watson (Jude Law). The greatest thing A Game of Shadows does is make its title character fail. Off-screen, he’s still a presence, devious and cutthroat as his plan plays out. Like Holmes, Moriarty knows what will happen. They leave greater destruction behind, put the heroes in a defensive stance, or total retreat. Set historically near to war, weapons receive a boost, from cannons to machine guns. The greatest thing A Game of Shadows does is make its title character fail
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