Review of Gattaca

Introduction

Gattaca is set in the future, but it`s a future that is worryingly not that distant. The world is divided by genes - if you are genetically engineered to be perfect then you are a "valid", if you are born naturally then you contain imperfections and become an "invalid" in this future society.

If you keep up with scientific news, you`ll know that these sorts of issues are already being very heavily debated, and here is a possible future played out for us on film.

"Valids" get the best jobs, "invalids" may only perform menial tasks. Gattaca tells the story of an "invalid" who tries to beat the system to fulfil a boyhood dream of going into space. In the future, identity theft involves a lot more than a fake passport and stolen credit card though. To convince the world that he is a "valid" he must go to greater lengths.

Video

A choice of viewing options here. On one side of the disc you get a 4:3 pan and scan version of the film which looks ok but is very heavily cropped.

You should of course watch the 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer on the other side of the disc. You get to see all of the picture, and you get to see that it looks very good indeed. The vision of the future seems to hark back to visions of the future conceived 20 or so years ago, but it still looks convincing.

There are a lot of dark scenes during the film, and a lot of yellow scenes too. The DVD transfer handles these very well, with very high detail levels and everything looking crisp and clean. A very nice transfer indeed.

Audio

A DD5.1 soundtrack in English (and German too) and it does a very good job. It`s not a film with loads of action set pieces, but there are one or two moments when all of the available channels are used to very good effect. Dialogue is always audible.

The other thing to mention is the excellent Michael Nyman score, which manages to ramp up the tension at just the right moments.

Features

And we even get some extras too. The deleted scenes are a bit of a mixture. The video quality isn`t great, but some of the scenes themselves are very good indeed, and can give you more insight into the world of the film. There`s also a rather amusing blooper in there too.

There`s quite a reasonable featurette on offer too, with cast and crew interviews, as well as a trailer, filmographies and stills galleries. I would have liked a commentary track, but no such thing exists - even on the region 1 disc, which seems remarkably similar.

Conclusion

A very interesting film which is very definitely worth watching. Intelligent science fiction, but aimed at the sort of people who don`t usually go and see science fiction films.

The disc itself is good, with an excellent picture, good sound and a reasonable set of extras. A commentary track would have been the icing on the cake.

Highly recommended.