Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Collateral

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Posted by Nate Lehrke (Member # 1460) on 07-22-2004, 05:08 AM:

I liked it. I enjoyed both Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx as the leads. I had no problem with Tom Cruise looking like an older man. [Big Grin]

The hand to hand fight scenes were cool and the action had a good pace. It had a predictable plot but was still entertaining.

The critics that are saying that this is just like Phonebooth, but in a taxi. I would argue that this actually had some plot and character development.

If you like action/adventure, you'll enjoy it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-05-2004, 03:35 PM:

I agree, a pretty entertaining film. While it has it's share of flaws (the whole suspension of disbelief thing only works so much), this is the best action/suspense movie of the year so far. Definitely worth a trip out to see.

Great sound mix and sharp picture too.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-05-2004, 06:46 PM:

Sharp picture? Even with much of the movie shot on videotape?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-05-2004, 07:31 PM:

The video originated footage is fairly obvious, but yes sharp throughout. Note I didn't say "ultra high resolution" or anything, just sharp.

Maybe I'm just getting spoiled these last couple of months because I have been screening most of my films on Christies (1998-2002) then more recently screening on Simplexes (2002-2004) and I am currently screening on Kinotons which blow everything I've ever ran out of the water. All the old timers will "bah" at my comments babbling about how perfect their machines are, but the Kinoton heads produce a truly phenomenal difference that you must see to really believe, similar to how people think their presentations are wonderful until they see a presentation with FilmGuard. Then suddenly they realize their presentations weren't so great before.

(Someone's going to come on here and want to challenge that again, so take it to the FHF if you want to argue the facts.)

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 08-05-2004, 11:51 PM:

Y-A-W-N...

I found no real redeeming qualities in this film. The rhetorical conversations held in the taxi were less than entertaining and quite boorish, IMO.

I was thankful to see the pace pick up at the end but it was somewhat painful getting there.

2/5

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 08-07-2004, 11:46 PM:

Today, Regal Cinema World 8 in Eugene. Excellent presentation, no complaints. For being shot on video, this looked pretty damn good (puts the live-action parts of, oh, say, SW Ep 2 to shame for sharpness and detail).

I really liked this - best film I've seen this summer, or at least since the last time I said that. Looking forward to seeing Jamie Fox in "Ray". They captured the "look" of LA perfectly. 4 out of 5 stars from me, well worth seeing in a good theater.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 08-08-2004, 02:07 AM:

Saw it at Regal Perimeter Pointe in Atlanta. THe dumb morons at this theater made one of their many allocation blunders. Same theater which put T3 in a small house opening day, and the KB2 in a medium house opening day, outdid themselves today. They actually showed Big Black Book in their big hall, and put Collateral in their next biggest one with a big dropoff in seat numbers. And they had the fast dropping VIllage in two medium screens. Collateral was crowded by the time the Regal 20 hit while Big Black Book didnt have much of a crowd. Their stupidity is amazing. At least, they got their presentation better this time. No picture was offframe. Sound was good.

Movie itself: Wow, I have always been a big supporter of Jamie Foxx's talent and I am glad it took a Tom Cruise movie(so it gets good marketing) to showcase Foxx because the guy has a wide range. He can do comedy, drama, and action. He showed his potential in Any Given Sunday and he gets his showcase with collateral.

Tom Cruise was good in his role. Doesn't overdo the big smile.

Jada Pinkett is the rare warm female character to grace a Mann movie. I am glad he didn't use one of those Diane Verona cold bitch types.

While some may feel the pace is slow, I enjoyed it because the actors do such a good job at making you not wanting the pace to quicken up.

The only times I felt distracted by the video feel was when they show the back of the taxi in some shots. Otherwise good camerawork.

Best movie of the summer for me so far. It was not an instant classic, but it delivers on what it sets out to do.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 08-08-2004, 02:41 AM:

Being a huge Michael Mann fan, I was really looking forward to this and it didn't let me down.

I thought alot of the scenes were very similar to Mann's other movies *possible Spoiler alert* The ending was very similar to Heat.

As for the digitally shot footage, it's pretty obvious which is film and what's digital, especially when the camera does a quick movement such as when the corpse falls on the cab and Jamie Foxx comes flying out of it.

Highly Recommended.

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 08-09-2004, 06:28 AM:

Awesome movie! One of the best of the summer, go see it today or else I'll smash your face in!!

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 08-09-2004, 04:18 PM:

This movie was good but it could have been better

****SPOILER**** maybe

I think the ending should have been different. Vincent should have faked dying on the bus and got up and shot the cab driver and my ex girlfriend Jada pinkett in the back of the head and then ended with a close up/fade out on his face. That would have been better.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 08-09-2004, 06:54 PM:

Chris, that would have been too predictable. And it wouldn't tie in with the earlier story he tells Jamie. Also I thought you didn't do the mixed race thing despite no aesthetic problems with the other race? Is that your way of wish fulfillment so you don't have to take her home? [Big Grin]

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 08-09-2004, 08:32 PM:

notice how I say Ex. Sorry but I cant mess around with Will smith's wife. He is a little bigger than I am.

***SPOILERS***
I think that ending would tie in with the whole "I'm vincent and im invincible" theme though. I felt that him dying on the subway was too predictable, as soon as you heard the story in the beginning you knew it would end that way.

The only thing that was not predictable was Mark Ruffalo's character getting shot.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-10-2004, 12:59 AM:

I finally got a chance to watch "Collateral" this evening (at the Carmike 8 of course, the only acceptable theater in my town).

Aside from some of the arguably predictable plot developments, as well as some other police procedural gaping holes in the story, this was a really entertaining movie. Tom Cruise did a good job playing a driven yet despicable villian. He didn't quite score the kind of "I can't believe he's doing this shit" oomph Denzel Washington hit with "Training Day" but it was very good nonetheless. The action sequence in the night club near the film's end had Cruise's "Vincent" hit-man character resembling the unstoppable nature of the T-1000 in "Terminator 2."

Pretty good sound mix on this one. I can tell Michael Mann loves jet airliner plane-by effects in the surrounds. These are not quite as good as the bass-whalloping ones in "Heat." A little more subtle this time.

Oh, the video. I agree the videography on this one was pretty sharp. They obviously used some good high definition video cameras. Still, you could tell the difference between the film-originated parts versus the video stuff. Two main artifacts give it away. The video sourced content, although sharp, suffers from a flattened color quality -probably the price of going from an RGB-based medium over to film's CMY substractive side. And there was this wierd kind of image drag/smear thing happening all the time. Did they shoot this stuff 24p? The image smear thing makes me wonder. At any rate, the video to film footage in "Collateral" looks a damned sight better than the vast majority of all other DV-to-film stuff I've seen up to this point.

Honestly, and I'm not sure if they would do this, I would offer this suggestion when this show gets ported to DVD. Leave the video footage looking like video. Take out that photo-chemical step. The color quality will be much much much better. If any Hollywood filmmaker wants to extoll the virtues of shooting on digital videotape, then he should have the guts to allow the footage to look like video rather than something it is not (film). In going through the pretentious step of trying to make video look like film, the image quality suffers a massive generational drop in quality. The best looking HD video footage I have seen has been footage that was left entirely in the video realm.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 08-10-2004, 01:34 AM:

quote: Chris Hipp
and my ex girlfriend Jada

That's more a technical question: is an ex-girlfriend automatically also an es-girlfriend?

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 08-10-2004, 05:24 PM:

Where does that leave the other chicks Ultra, Pana, and Smart D [Big Grin]

Long rotten week but Hell I am alive [Razz]

The movie is a typical late summer show...O.K. screen filler. The HD was good but the "smear" on action was more distracting than from a rotating shutter in a film camera.

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 08-11-2004, 08:11 AM:

The picture for this was awesome. I honestly was kinda bored in this. The action was good near the end, but the pace just wasn't there for me. It was good, but not that great. An easily forgotten movie.

2.5/5

Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 08-14-2004, 02:53 AM:

Too long! Could have shorten it or added more action. At least a little [sex]

for God sakes [Big Grin]

j/k

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-15-2004, 10:08 PM:

Not one of Michael Mann's best efforts but a solid effort indeed and I enjoyed the film alot. Cruse did a great job and was very slick. It kept me well occupied for the length and was somewhat of a nail biter for the last part. I didn't feel it was too long and much of the film has a slickness to it that others try for but never make. This is the first film that I have been able to become "involved in" in a long long time.

Mark

Posted by Tommie Evans (Member # 2674) on 09-12-2004, 08:40 AM:

Did anyone notice the stiffs in the mortuary move, or the cop look straight into the camera after putting down the phone... [Big Grin]

I really enjoyed this movie, a change from Tom Cruise playing the good guy. I was on the edge of my seat for most part!

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 09-12-2004, 03:58 PM:

I enjoyed it but I *did* wonder how they were able to shoot this film with such low light levels. Now I know: Video. This probably also explains the low contrast look.

Lots of style, good to see Tom Cruise in a 'bad guy' role.

Presentation at the (new) Edwards in Alhambra (Christie projector) was a hair out of focus and the final reel had positive vertical scratches throughout. SRD track sounded great.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-12-2004, 07:33 PM:

quote: Manny Knowles
I enjoyed it but I *did* wonder how they were able to shoot this film with such low light levels. Now I know: Video. This probably also explains the low contrast look.

The CCDs in the HD video cameras used were probably a good bit larger than the 1/4" or 1/3" sized CCDs you typically find on most consumer and broadcast quality video cameras. Even more likely, the HD cameras had very expensive lens systems able to suck up as much ambient light as possible.

The low contrast look could either be the in-between film step in making the 35mm interpositives. However, there are electronic methods both within some video cameras and in post production systems that try to imitate film gamma.

Still, I think the producers ought to take a chance and leave the original video imagery looking like video when it is released to DVD.

Posted by Mitchell Cope (Member # 32) on 09-14-2004, 08:01 AM:

Yawnnnn. I’ve seen better TV than this. I mean network TV. This seemed all too contrived. These characters looked like they were doing a play. Very uneven. There was a speck of suspense at the end, but that was about it. It was stupid to believe all this could occur.

I could have lived with the video, but the “smearing” had no redeeming qualities. It didn’t add to the realism, it took away that “suspension of disbelief”. LA at night was cool, but it needs to be redone with a different story and a different recording system.

DOA [thumbsdown]