Search - Metropolis on DVD

Terrible, terrible transfer

SRFireside | Houston, TX United States | 05/17/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This review is not about the silent movie, Metropolis. This is a review of this DVD version made by Madacy Entertainment. Essentially Metropolis is considered public domain and just about anybody can make a DVD and sell it. Considering how many versions have been around it seems this is already happening. Madacy's Metropolis is among the worst.

I have seen 15 year old VHS transfers that look better than this. The detail is all washed out and fuzzy. The whites are too strong and the blacks are faded. Basically these people got the first copy of the movie they could find and just made a direct transfer.

The sound is even worse than the visuals. To me a silent film sinks or swims based on how well the music interacts with it. This DVD has absolutely no interaction whatsoever. It's as is if someone just turned on a CD player and let it repeat some classical suite over and over again. You get zero musical ques for the film. None.

So all you get here is a lame transfer with even worse audio to make what should be considered a classic silent film more like a tedious class assignment. If you really want to enjoy Metropolis get the Restored Authorized Edition and see what this film is supposed to look like. Seeing it in this form only makes me want to put it down like a mad dog."

Inferior version

M. DEBELLIS | New York, NY USA | 07/25/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is an inferior version of the film. Bad print quality, bad continuity (missing scenes so it's impossible to follow the story), odd choice of music. This version (Madacy) is far inferior to the Restored Authorized Edition from Kino Video."