Review of What Dreams May Come

Video

This is a very visual film.

The excellent Robin Williams stars in this heart warming tale of love to include a trip through heaven and hell. Of course the special effects are plentiful during these sequences, and the screen is lit up with a highly vibrant, colourful landscape. Williams mourns the loss of his wife, an artist, and consequently his own vision of heaven is being in one of her paintings. So brilliant colour is used to the full here.

The DVD is really the only way to see this film apart from the cinema. VHS would completely fail to carry the vibrant colours across to the viewer, and so we are treated to a superbly crisp 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer here. Colours are vivid but not saturated, and the general picture is very sharp and crisp. If you have a projector, this is one film to show it off.

Overall an excellent video presentation, and split over 18 chapters.

Audio

Here again this DVD scores very highly.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is crammed full of atmospheric detail in the heaven and hell sequences. The twittering of the birds, the gentle whistling of the wind, and the echoing voices during the heaven sequence makes a Dolby Digital audio system an absolute must! During the hell scenes, the thunder and the demons create an eerie, frightening audio presence that fills the soundstage.

Wonderful stuff!!

Features

Well we are not treated to a huge set of extras unfortunately, just the theatrical trailer, and cast and crew interviews, You also get biographies and production notes in the printed booklet. Menus are static.

Conclusion

I had not seen this film before, and I have to say I was somewhat taken by it. The story is enchanting, and a joy to watch. The 108 minutes passed very quickly, and after scribbling notes for this review throughout, I certainly will be giving it another spin.

Williams is excellent as ever (has is ever made a crap film????) and Cuba Gooding Jnr plays Albert the angel. In parts, the words ‘City of Angels’ tended to spring to mind, but the two films cannot really be compared.

The DVD is beautifully presented (allbeit in a plastic super jewel case…) in terms of video and audio quality, but a little light on the extras.