The Doors might not be a great biopic if only because I personally am not a big fan of Oliver Stone (have enjoyed many of movies, however) or of Jim Morrison and his band (though enjoyed many of their songs), it is still worth checking out if you haven’t already, if only to watch the new “Final Cut” version.
The Doors
— The Final Cut —
(1991)
Genre(s): Drama, Music
Lionsgate | R / Unrated – 141 min. / 138 min. – $22.99 | July 23, 2019
Date Published: 08/01/2019 | Author: The Movieman
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Lionsgate provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 3.25/5 |
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Note: I watched the new Final Cut version which runs about 3-minutes shorter than the Theatrical Version. Plot Synopsis: After a psychedelic experience in the California desert, Jim Morrison (VAL KILMER), lead singer of The Doors, and his band mates (KEVIN DILLON, KYLE MACLACHLAN, FRANK WHALEY) begin performing in Los Angeles and quickly become a sensation. However, when Jim begins ditching his musical responsibilities and his girlfriend, Pamela (MEG RYAN), in favor of his dangerous addictions and the affections of the seductive, occult-obsessed Patricia (KATHLEEN QUINLAN), the band starts to worry about their leader. Quick Hit Review: I will admit up front, my views on Oliver Stone as a filmmaker and Jim Morrison as a singer are pretty much aligned: both are extremely talented but neither are exactly my type for movies and music respectively. So mixing the two together, my opinion on The Doors is that it is well made and certainly breaks the mold of the biopic, but in the end, it felt emotionless, including the final scene, perhaps because all I saw was Morrison as a reckless artist with very little sympathy on display. On the plus side, I will say Val Kilmer was fantastic where more often than not, the actor did an amazing job becoming Jim Morrison, he’s not quite the chameleon like a Gary Oldman, Daniel Day-Lewis or even Johnny Depp (of old anyway, and actually think he’d been an interesting choice for the role). In any case, Kilmer’s performance was so good, probably was deserving of some Academy Award attention, personally I would’ve replaced De Niro with Kilmer… While The Doors never really connected on an emotional level, I will say it is always impressive when a director like Oliver Stone is able to churn out two quality pictures in the same year, in this case JFK was also released and did garner multiple Oscar nominations, taking the awards for cinematography and editing. I suppose if you’re a big fan of either Stone or Morrison, The Doors is a worthy effort. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 4.0/5 |
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This release comes with a glossy slip cover and because some of it has a black background, fingerprints do show up. Inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD and the Blu-ray disc which does contain features not on the 4K disc. Audio Commentary – Co-Writer/Director Oliver Stone provides some insights into his approach to directing a music biopic, going into detail on the actors, locations and such. Available only for the Theatrical Cut. Interviews:
These newly recorded interviews, available exclusively on the 4K disc. Stone delves into his involvement with the project and memories on working on the production while Bender talks about remixing the movie with Dolby Atmos for this release; pretty interesting stuff especially if you like some of the technical aspects. The following are features on the older produced Blu-ray disc: Audio Commentary with Stone; The Doors in L.A. (19:37) featurette with interviews by Oliver Stone, former band members John Dnesmore & Robbie Krieger and others; Jim Morrison: A Poet in Paris (52:08) on the singer’s last days; The Road of Excess (38:42) is about the 1960s drug culture; Original Featurette (6:19) from 1991; 14 Deleted Scenes (43:49) including a Stone introduction; and lastly the Theatrical Trailer (1:17) and TV Spots (2:58). |
VIDEO – 4.5/5 |
| Lionsgate releases The Doors onto 4K Ultra HD where it’s presented with a 2.39 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 2160p high-definition transfer. Like some other older Lionsgate Blu-rays (see Van Wilder or American Psycho), this one was due for an improvement and the picture here does look great, detail is sharp throughout, colors are bright and vibrant, and there were certain scenes in red that really popped thanks to the HDR. There were also no signs of banding, aliasing or other apparent flaws. |
AUDIO – 5.0/5 |
| The audio got an up-mix from the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 to Dolby Atmos which was remixed by fabled sound mixer, Lon Bender. Although the old track did sound great, the Atmos one takes it to the next level where not only are the front and rear channels outputting crisp and clear audio, the overheads gives you the experience of listening to The Doors live in concert. This alone would be worth the upgrade cost. |
OVERALL – 4.0/5 |
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The Doors might not be a great biopic if only because I personally am not a big fan of Oliver Stone (have enjoyed many of movies, however) or of Jim Morrison and his band (though also enjoyed many of their songs), it is still worth checking out if you haven’t already, if only to watch the new “Final Cut” version. |