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VISION Premiere prints look great too!

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More and more feature films like the "look" of Kodak VISION Premier Color Print Film. In this case, prints were evidently made on both 2383 and 2393, with the Kodak VISION Premier Prints going to select theatres.

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/2393.shtml
 

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Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 05-02-2003, 01:52 PM:
 
My right surround amplifier blew near the beginning when Siryn screams but other than that this movie rules.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-02-2003, 02:06 PM:
 
So why didn't the preppy ice guy just freeze the water to prevent the flooding? Durp!

3 stars out of 5
 

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Posted by Mike Baer (Member # 1519) on 05-02-2003, 02:23 PM:
 
Yes you are right.I thought the same thing.
 

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Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 05-02-2003, 02:39 PM:
 
Maybe he wasn't quite that powerful. The most that we saw him do was construct a wall in a hallway. Remember their powers don't quite mature until they are well into adulthood.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 05-02-2003, 07:55 PM:
 
05/02/2003, Cinemark 17, Springfield OR, 2:50PM, #10, . Attendance about 150. Presentation was generally very good, except for a couple of issues that were probably not entirely the theatre's fault. Reel 1 had golfball-size grain and a very washed-out look. Reels 2 thru 7 looked WAY better: much less grain, better contrast, xlnt blacks. Maybe they were on Vision Premier stock and reel 1 was something else. Reel 2 had dirt specks, and dots (CAP code?) repeating very often in the upper-left area of the image. Some of the rolling stock was dirty. The digital sound was excellent -- I think they've re-eq'd the place recently and it's made a big improvement.

I liked the original "X-Men". I have the DVD and I've watched it several times. So having said that, "X2: X-Men United" is CRAP. I hated it. I have nothing good to say about it, except the sound mix is great. The special effects were not special at all. Some of the acting is wooden. There were people in the audience laughing at inappropriate times. I couldn't follow what was going on because I made no connection with the story, and what's more, I didn't care. I spent a lot of time looking at my watch. This is a 2-hour film with a 3-hour perceived running time.

My theory is the reason for the worldwide day-and-date release of X-2 is they know they have a stinker on their hands and word-of-mouth will be bad, so they have to clean up as quickly as they can.
 

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Posted by Patrick McDonough (Member # 1363) on 05-02-2003, 11:10 PM:
 
that question was broght up tonight.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-05-2003, 10:51 AM:
 
Aside from a sluggish climax, I still had a pretty good time watching this one. More could have been done to explain why Iceman didn't just freeze the flood, but then that would have interfered with the obvious setup for "X3". People familiar with the X-Men comics from the late 1970's would be familiar with the Phoenix saga and know exactly what the glow under the water meant. If handled well, "X3" should be really cool.

I don't know what kind of print David was watching ("golfball size grain" etc.), the one I saw at the Cinemark Tinseltown theater in Oklahoma City looked really nice (don't know whether this was one of those Vision Premiere prints or not; the show was running in DTS). The visuals were very cool too. The opening sequence where Nightcrawler attacks the White House was great. It was also fun to see Mystique seduce Wolverine and screw with his head. Magneto's prison break was also very entertaining. We get a fleeting introduction to Colossus, one of the classic 70's X-Men characters, but he isn't named and has only one stunt in the show.

The only things I found glaringly fake looking were the sky tornadoes in that dogfight sequence and the Jean Grey controlling the flood near the end. Nightcrawler's FX stuff was by far the best in terms of the visuals.

The only gripes I had about the presentation was a general lack of bass at this Cinemark theater. The surround field was very alive throughout this movie, but I don't what the deal is with a lot of Cinemark locations in that many have WIMPY bass. It's like the subs were just unplugged or something.

More infurianting gripes: Some couple chose to bring their noise making infant to the show, so everyone would hear its cute ga-ga goo-goo and crying shit up at back left of the theater (asshole parents!! No, we don't think that cooing shit is cute at all; get a f**king babysitter next time!!). More infuriating than that was three different cellphones going off during the show --including that of one dumbass sitting right next to me! It was all I could do to resist grabbing his phone and chunking down in front the front row. Cellphone idiocy has gotten so bad that the AMC 24-plex at Quail Springs Mall now has ushers informing audiences before the show begins that they WILL be ejected if their cellphones sound off. Unless you are a doctor on call, leave the f**king phone in the car; and if you are a brain surgeon, put the phone on VIBRATE/SILENT mode. Dumbasses!
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 05-05-2003, 11:19 AM:
 
Only reel 1 looked "bad" to me. The rest of the film looked MUCH better. I don't know if it was Vision Premiere or not, but from the very deep blacks, I'll bet it was (except for reel 1).

I've been complaining for a long time about the lack of bass at Cinemark 17 here. Guess what??!! They have CLEARLY done something about it recently. My last half-dozen or so visits to this theatre have shown a HUGE improvement in sound quality: Plenty of good deep bass, and everything else sounds like it's EQ'd much better. I've been WAY happy about this improvement in sound quality there. X-2 sounded GREAT. I now have no good reason for going to the competitor Regal location (Regal had better sound until now). The analog sound seems way better too. Someone has really worked at improving things there. to Cinemark.

As for the movie, I think I was having a bad day that day. I intend to see it again and hopefully will enjoy it more.
 

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Posted by Duncan Smith (Member # 1556) on 05-05-2003, 11:38 AM:
 
Saw this myself yesterday at my local multi where I used to work. Presentation was good but I did notice that the Sub bass was very weak, not a characteristic of that theatre though. Also, did anyone else notice the presence of black bars along the bottom of the image during certain shots? I'm guessing this was done in camera as it was cutting in and out with different shots throughtout the movie. They weren't huge but I was only in the 4th row so I noticed them a lot. I did think it was very grainy too, perhaps a good show print in Leicester square would look better, they usually do. I am sure that the film was racked correctly by the way so why the bars?

Did enjoy the film though, where was Kitty (shadowkat)? I only saw her briefly. I was expecting her to have a bigger part, guess there's always X3!

Duncan.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-06-2003, 09:06 PM:
 
I'd already seen it at a trade screening... but we've done very good business so far (first week).

We got an excellent print... no grain, black bar, wavy dark line or speckle issues with this one. DTS effects were very evident... especially during the "find the mutant - find the human" scenes with Prof X in "Cerebro".

Everyone seems to be enjoying it. It'll be interesting to see how it gets through the usual 2nd-week drop.

Not being a follower if the comic, I enjoyed this one thoroughly. I thought they did a very good job of bringing in a viewer that might not have seen the first one. As for the ice-kid not stopping the flood... that didn't occur to me until I saw the other posts here... but I can buy into the "immature powers" theory. In any case, he did a good job of cooling the Dr. Pepper bottle during the product placement scene . In any case, some pictures are best enjoyed if you intentionally leave your "critic's nature" at the door.

Then there's Matrix coming up on the 14th, which might have a tiny effect on turnout, eh?
 

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Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 05-07-2003, 10:58 PM:
 
Attendance: 2003/05/07 19:00, Regal Madison Square 12, Huntsville, AL, Auditorium 8, DTS, Scope

I enjoyed watching this movie. As for the comparison with the first X-Men, I couldn't say I enjoyed it more or less than the first one at this point. Future viewings of both will help that determination in the future.

The sound mix was very good, but the theatre I was in had it a little too loud (painfully loud at times). There were two points in the movie where I stuck my fingers in my ears.

It was a good movie (well worth seeing) that filled this large auditorium at this not-so-busy theatre to about half capacity on a weeknight, which isn't bad! This movie will probably continue to do well until the next big movie comes out (Matrix Reloaded).

The presentation was fine, except for the audio being a little too loud. as I mentioned earlier.
 

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Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 05-08-2003, 12:17 AM:
 
I haven't seen the film yet, so I'll wait until I see it to post a review. Sounds intrigiung, though.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 05-11-2003, 06:49 PM:
 
My 2nd viewing of this.

05/11/2003, Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene OR, 1:00PM, #3, probably . Attendance less than 20 (in a 480-seat house, and they're still running X2 on 2 screens -- Yikes!). Image quality on the massive 30-foot screen was OUTSTANDING -- really looked good. Unfortunately, the surround volume was very low and the surrounds also seemed like they were in mono, plus there was no subwoofer action at all. Something was definitely not right audio-wise.

In my first review, I called this "CRAP". This time I liked the film much better. Now structurally, there's something wrong with it, and I can't quite put my finger on the problem. It's like there's no beginning, middle, and end. Or maybe there's "too many notes". The pacing seems very linear and there's really no arc. I don't know. And there are too many characters with not enough for them to do. The special effects still seem not all that great. And did anyone notice the mismatched shots outdoors near the end where it was snowing from one angle, then it's not snowing, then Wolverine has ice in his hair, then he doesn't? Well anyway, I did kind of enjoy it this time.

All in all it's an ambitious effort but falls short in some ways. Remains to be seen whether I will fork over real $$ for the DVD.

[ 05-11-2003, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: David Stambaugh ]
 

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Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 05-12-2003, 08:04 PM:
 
It has been said that Halle Berry was unhappy with her screen time (even though it had already been bulked up due to her oscar win) and probably wont appear in future installments. Also there is a rumor that even though there isn't even a script yet they are considering making the next two sequels (the Phoenix saga?) at the same time and releasing them ala the Matrix sequels. I am sure that they are waiting to see how the Matrix does before they make a final decision.
 

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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-14-2003, 01:32 PM:
 
Last week I had an emotional breakdown involving my new house. So that night I thought that what I needed to see was a nice movie based on a comic book where I could just turn off my brain. I went to X2 and enjoyed it very much.

It was just the tonic that my brain needed to recover from the emotional problems of earlier. The movie moved along just fine. Plot point followed by chick in blue paint. Interesting charactor development followed by chick in blue paint. Mild social message followed by chick in blue paint. And when I became bored (never ) with the chick in blue paint, there was a kick ass fight sequence.
 

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Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 05-18-2003, 02:46 PM:
 
Good riddance to Halle berry. The way she plays the character makes her very expendable. I wish they had cast someone else in this movie. Other than that. I loved the movie. It was refreshing to watch a summer movie that actually met the hype.
 

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Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 05-20-2003, 10:29 AM:
 
I rate "X-Men 2" 6 beers out of 12

I didn't like this as much as the first one. I felt they had to many charactors and would follow one, then switch back to another charactor. It became annoying. Also it felt like it was to long, I wanted it to end. Sound good, fighting scenes o.k, I hate close up shots and fancy camera work, MTV style cuts.

When the cops invade Mutant Acdamey, it seemed real dark to me. I was unable to see what Wolverine was doing. Is this the Vision Premiere stock or just how it is suppose to look??? Not the bulb, cause ever other scene looked fine. Alot more comic book problems with this one than the first. So die hards will not like. I didn't like.

I agree that the Ice kid should of frozen the lake. Why could nightcrawler only teleport where he can see, but he teleports into the oval office fine and to save Rogue.???

Overall ok, not great. Can't stand alone film as they say.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-20-2003, 11:02 AM:
 

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Is this the Vision Premiere stock or just how it is suppose to look???

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