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MOVIE INFO

Director:
Roger Vadim
Cast:
Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Milo O'Shea
Writing Credits:
Terry Southern, Roger Vadim

Synopsis:
In the 41st century, an astronaut partakes in sexy misadventures while seeking to stop an evil scientist who threatens to bring evil back into the galaxy.

MPAA:
Rated Approved.

DISC DETAILS
Presentation:
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Dolby Vision
Audio:
English Dolby Atmos
English LPCM Monaural
French LPCM Monaural
Subtitles:
English
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 98 min.
Price: $59.95
Release Date: 11/28/2023

Bonus:
• Audio Commentary with Film Historian Tim Lucas
• Isolated Score
• Alternative Opening and Closing Credits
• “Another Girl, Another Planet” Featurette
• “Barbarella Forever” Featurette
• “Love” Featurette
• “Dress to Kill” Featurette
• “Framing for Claude” Featurette
• “Tognazzi on Tognazzi” Featurette
• “An Angel’s Body Double” Featurette
• “Dino and Barbarella” Featurette
• Trailer
• US TV Spot
• US Radio Spots
• Image Gallery


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
-LG OLED65C6P 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart OLED TV
-Marantz SR7010 9.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD AV Surround Receiver
-Sony UBP-X700 4K Ultra HD Dolby Vision Blu-ray Player
-Chane A2.4 Speakers
-SVS SB12-NSD 12" 400-watt Sealed Box Subwoofer


RELATED REVIEWS


Barbarella: Limited Edition [4K UHD] (1968)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 26, 2023)

55 years after its 1968 theatrical release, there are a total of two reasons why the film Barbarella maintains any presence in the communal consciousness. First, pop group Duran Duran took their name from the movie's villain.

Second, a young and very sexy, pre-workout/plastic surgery Jane Fonda stars, and she spends the picture either in skimpy outfits or none at all. While some of the shots of Jane did get my motor mildly revved up, neither of these factors comes close to redeeming this atrocious mess of a film.

Set in the far off future, astronaut Barbarella (Fonda) receives an assignment from the President of Earth (Claude Dauphin). Scientist Durand-Durand (Milo O’Shea) goes missing and she needs to find him.

This becomes of particular concern because Durand invented a deadly weapon that authorities fear will fall into the wrong hands. As Barbarella investigates, she meets various parties who send her on a surprising erotic journey.

Inevitably, many parties will argue that Barbarella is one of those movies that's so bad, it's good. They're wrong.

It's so bad, it's bad. In fact, it's so bad, it's terrible and almost unbearable to watch - only sweet Jane kept me in front of the screen.

Even that aspect of the film wasn't as hot as it could have been. Barbarella starts with a long scene of Jane stripping out of her space suit, but much of the good stuff gets blocked by some cutesy title credits. Yeah, this was obviously intentional, but I still got peeved.

Anyway, as with fellow sci-fi craptacular Logan’s Run, only some nice skin makes Barbarella even remotely tolerable. I suppose Barbarella deserves some credit in that it at least tries to be a satirical comedy, whereas Run takes itself rather seriously.

But while Barbarella constantly winks at the viewer, that doesn't make it any more entertaining. Whether intentionally bad or not, this is one awful film.

The word "campy" doesn't do justice to this flavor of cheese, and the acting seems constantly atrocious. No signs of the Jane who would become an accomplished performer appear here, as she just swoons her way through this tripe.

Heck, we get stuck with Keith Richards' ex Anita Pallenberg in one role. We even find famous mime Marcel Marceau in a speaking part, for God's sake!

The story plods along as Barbarella pursues Durand-Durand for reasons that become less and less interesting with each passing moment. Once she finally meets him, I could not have cared less what happened.

Of course, I never really had any interest in what happened prior to that. As such, this wasn’t much of a loss.

Barbarella displays special effects that make the original Star Trek shows look high-tech. Most laughable are the terrible blue screen effects for the flying Angel, though the ugly and ridiculously phony sets give them a run for their money.

Admittedly, Barbarella becomes a bit harder to criticize than films that are unintentionally funny ala Logan's Run. After all, it was co-written by Terry Southern, who also worked on the script for Dr. Strangelove, and it clearly tries to spoof science fiction films and some of the hippie-drippy attitude of the era.

If it did so with any success, that'd be great. However, it delivers such a silly and campy little piece of excrement that I must consider it a complete failure.


The Disc Grades: Picture B+/ Audio B-/ Bonus A-

Barbarella appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. This turned into a pretty solid Dolby Vision presentation.

Overall sharpness was quite good, as the majority of the film showed solid clarity and accuracy. A few slightly soft elements materialized, but the majority of the flick seemed well-defuned.

I noticed no issues with jaggies or moiré effects, and edge haloes were absent. The film came with nice, natural grain and lacked print flaws.

With its wild late 1960s psychedelic background, Barbarella boasted a dynamic palette. The film reproduced the vivid hues in a satisfying manner, as the tones always looked full and rich. HDR gave the colors an added boost.

Blacks came across as dark and deep, while shadows demonstrated reasonable clarity. A few were a bit dense, but those were exceptions to the rule.

HDR brought extra punch to contrast and whites. I thought the 4K represented the source well.

In addition to the film’s LPCM monaural audio, the 2023 release sported a new Dolby Atmos remix. Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, this became a mixed bag.

On the positive side, overall fidelity seemed strong. In particular, the score boasted nice range, and some effects followed suit with better than average dimensionality.

Dialogue occasionally became a bit edgy, but the lines remained more than adequate given their vintage. Effects also sometimes showed a little distortion, but they also were perfectly fine for their age.

The Atmos soundscape became the main issue here, as it created a somewhat awkward impression. Much of the track focused primarily on the front, and in that regard, it tended to do fine.

I wouldn’t call music truly stereo. Though the score spread across the front, it didn’t show much obvious separation.

Nonetheless, music used the forward channels well enough, as did effects. These popped up from the front sides in a fairly evocative manner.

My concerns emerged when the soundfield blended with additional channels. Not only did this occur sporadically, but also the surrounds simply failed to mesh with the forward speakers well.

Really, the two halves felt oddly disconnected, and the info from the back became a distraction. I thought the Atmos mix offered a potentially compelling alternative but I didn’t love the semi-overbearing soundscape.

Did this mean I preferred the included mono mix? Yes, though I admit that I missed the superior range of the Atmos track.

In particular, music boasted a bit more oomph via the Atmos version. Nonetheless, I felt the Atmos soundscape created too many distractions to work, so I thought the mono mix became the more satisfying accompaniment to the film.

How did this 4K UHD compare to the concurrent BD from Arrow? Both brought identical audio.

As for the Dolby Vision picture, it boasted a good upgrade, mainly because it brought stronger delineation, colors and blacks. Granted, it also accentuated the movie’s dodgy effects and process shots, but I still felt it became the more accurate representation of the source.

We find extras spread across two platters, and on Disc One, we open with an audio commentary from film historian Tim Lucas. He brings a running, screen-specific look at the source and its adaptation/path to the screen, cast and crew, music, production elements, genre domains and general thoughts.

A veteran of the format, Lucas brings a generally engaging take on the film. However, he too often simply provides an annotated filmography related to participants.

This means we don’t learn as much about the actual movie creation as I’d prefer. Still, Lucas gives us enough to make this a worthwhile listen.

We also find an Isolated Score Track. It presents the film’s music via LPCM mono audio. It’s too bad the score didn’t get a stereo presentation, but at least it offers lossless material.

Finally, Disc One finishes with both Alternative Opening Credits (2:21) and Alternative Closing Credits (1:16). The former just shortens the film’s start.

This means that we lose much of Barbarella’s intro and strip, as these credits start when the movie’s text appears. It’s a more straightforward opening but it lacks the “tone setting” of the finished film.

As for the closing, they also run shorter, and they come with colored text instead of the white seen in the final credits. Nothing story-related differs between the two, however.

Disc Two provides a standard Blu-ray, and we find eight featurettes. Another Girl, Another Planet runs 23 minutes, three seconds and brings an appreciation from critic Glenn Kenny as he discusses aspects of the cast/crew as well as the production and his take on it.

“Appreciation” might imply Kenny just praises the movie, and he does relate his positive feelings toward it. However, he mostly focuses on a more literate view of the film and its genre, so this becomes a worthwhile program.

Barbarella Forever spans 14 minutes, 54 seconds and gives us footage shot during the movie’s 1967 production in Rome. Nothing revelatory emerges but I like our chance to take a brief glimpse behind the scenes.

Next comes Love, a one-hour, 53-minute, 20-second piece. This one features a chat between Tim Lucas and film historian Steve Bissette.

They mainly look at the movie’s comic book roots, with additional info on related publications and films. While we get some good info, 113 minutes feel too long, so the piece can come across as a bit of a slog.

Dress to Kill lasts 31 minutes, 30 seconds. Here we find notes from film scholar Elizabeth Castaldo Lunden.

She examines the clothes of Barbarella, with an emphasis on costume designer Jacques Fontenay and his work. We get ample glimpses of concept drawings and other materials, so along with Lunden’s comments, this turns into an informative piece.

After this we go to Framing for Claude. It fills 17 minutes, 12 seconds with comments from camera operator Roberto Girometti.

He talks about his work on the movie and his relationship with cinematographer Claude Renoir. He gives us a compelling overview of his experiences on the film.

Tognazzi on Tognazzi runs 21 minutes, 56 seconds. Here we locate remarks from Ricky Tognazzi, son of actor Ugo Tognazzi.

The younger Tognazzi tells us of his dad’s life/career as well as his time on Barbarella. We get a fairly engaging chat.

With An Angel’s Body Double, we find a 24-minute, 26-second reel. It involves actor/stuntman/body double Fabio Testi.

The program covers Testi’s work in films and time on Barbarella. It ends up as another mostly worthwhile piece.

Finally, Dino and Barbarella occupies 14 minutes, 27 seconds. Film historian Eugenio Ercolani creates a “video essay”.

The piece looks at producer Dino De Laurentiis’ career and his influence on Barbarella. Ercolani sums up matters succinctly.

In addition to the film’s trailer, US TV spot and three US radio spots, we conclude with an Image Gallery. It involves 88 stills.

We get a mix of publicity shots, ads and elements from the film. Expect a pretty good compilation.

Although Barbarella offers some cheap thrills via sexy shots of Jane Fonda, that becomes about all it has going for it. Campy and dull at the same time, the movie turns into a chore to watch. The 4K UHD delivers very good picture as well as acceptable audio along with a mix of bonus materials. Though I don’t like the movie, this turns into a fine release of it.

To rate this film, visit the prior review of BARBARELLA

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Review Archive:  # | A-C | D-F | G-I | J-L | M-O | P-R | S-U | V-Z | Viewer Ratings | Main