{"id":2755,"date":"2011-10-25T18:09:59","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T01:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2021-04-22T22:56:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T05:56:41","slug":"review-facesinthecrowd-bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2011\/10\/review-facesinthecrowd-bd\/","title":{"rendered":"Faces in the Crowd Blu-ray Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Faces in the Crowd<\/em><\/strong> hardly breaks new ground in the genre, but it has a few things going for it Milla Jovovich turns in a good performance, the mystery aspects are at least compelling and what writer\/director Magnat does by putting the audience in the main character\u2019s mindset is unique and effective.<\/p>\n

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\nFaces in the Crowd (2011)<\/strong><\/p>\n


\nREVIEW NAVIGATION<\/strong><\/span>
\nThe Movie<\/a> | Special Features<\/a> | Video Quality<\/a> | Audio Quality<\/a> | Overall<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Genre(s): <\/strong>Suspense\/Mystery
\nMillennium | R \u2013 102 min. \u2013 $29.98 | October 25, 2011<\/p>\n

MOVIE INFO:<\/span>
\nDirected by: <\/strong>Julien Magnat
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Julien Magnat (written by)
\nCast: <\/strong>Milla Jovovich, Julian McMahon, Sarah Wayne Callies, Michael Shanks, David Atrakchi<\/p>\n

DISC INFO:<\/span>
\nFeatures: <\/strong>Featurettes
\nNumber of Discs: <\/strong>1<\/p>\n

Audio: <\/strong>English (Dolby TrueHD 5.1)
\nVideo: <\/strong>1080p\/Widescreen 2.40
\nSubtitles: <\/strong>English SDH, Spanish
\nDisc Size: <\/strong>19.4 GB
\nCodec: <\/strong>MPEG-4 AVC
\nRegion(s): <\/strong>A<\/p>\n

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THE MOVIE<\/strong> \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Plot: <\/strong>Anna (MILLA JOVOVICH) may be the only survivor of serial killer Tearjerk Jack\u2019s horrendous reign, but left with \u201cface blindness,\u201d she is completely unable to identify him \u2013 or anyone else. Now, with only a tough but loyal detective\u2019s (JULIAN MCMAHON) face familiar to her, she cannot trust anyone as she struggles to resume her normal life, and, plagued by fear and a vindictive Jack, struggles to survive.<\/p>\n

Written and directed by Frenchman Julien Magnat, Faces in the Crowd<\/em><\/strong> follows in the footsteps of countless Hitchcock suspense-mysteries and even Christopher Nolan\u2019s Memento<\/em>, the latter even more so with a main character dealing with a mental disability blocking their path for the truth and survival. However, unlike Hitchcock\u2019s mysteries or Memento<\/em>, Faces<\/em><\/strong> doesn\u2019t take advantage with a unique story idea weighed down by uninspiring performances (not bad, merely forgettable), a melodramatic story and some truly perplexing scenes that make little sense or downright break the rules Magnat set forth.<\/p>\n

With regards to the cast, I will give credit to Milla Jovovich who is, sometimes rightly so, vilified on the Net for her bad performances. I\u2019ve never been overly impressed with Jovovich (her acting anyway) from the ongoing Resident Evil<\/em> franchise to her odds and end flicks in between (Ultraviolet<\/em> was a dud while she was the only saving grace in Stone<\/em>), but I felt here she put forth a valiant performance with some semblance of believability and a shade of depth which itself was unfulfilled. I should note, Jovovich served as one of the 17 producers on the film.<\/p>\n

The supporting cast, however, I thought weren\u2019t anything special, although given we see several different faces for the recurring characters, I can\u2019t be overly critical. One issue on that front is while it\u2019s good to keep the killer\u2019s identity the key mystery, I never felt him all that threatening save for his initial attack. Now, for his part, Julian McMahon fulfills that pseudo love interest role well enough, of course his initial introduction came off a bit strangely as he seems to confuse toughness with being a jerk.<\/p>\n

But acting and a few concerns with the screenplay aside, I did enjoy Faces in the Crowd<\/em><\/strong> as a decent thriller that managed to keep my attention for its relatively swift 100-minute running time. As I said, the script is hardly perfect Milla Jovovich gives a good performance and at times I got a bit of a Hitchockian vibe to Magnat\u2019s direction, Vertigo<\/em> in particular; blasphemous perhaps and I\u2019m not saying it came anywhere near that, just I got that vibe albeit briefly.<\/p>\n

Faces in the Crowd<\/em><\/strong> hardly breaks new ground in the suspense-mystery genre but I felt it was effective enough to warrant a recommendation to others. I liked some of the ambience writer\/director Magnat presented as well as a unique way of conveying Anna\u2019s condition by changing the face of each character nearly every time we see them. I know the movie has gotten a bad rap online, but I say give it a shot.<\/p>\n

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SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 1.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Making \u201cFaces\u201d (2:47; SD)<\/span><\/strong> is a basic, and I do mean, basic, making-of featurette where we get general comments by the cast and crew about the plot.<\/p>\n

Doppelgangers (5:40; SD)<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 This featurette covers the different actors used for the same role and how the casting process went by finding people who are similar but have slight differences.<\/p>\n

Cast of Characters (5:17; SD)<\/span><\/strong> breaks down the ensemble and why they were right for the roles. The cast also talks about working with one another to which the experiences were wonderful. It\u2019s nothing special and doesn\u2019t offer much insight into the process.<\/p>\n

Previews<\/strong> \u2013 Blitz<\/em>, Trust<\/em>, Elephant White<\/em>, Shadows & Lies<\/em><\/p>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 4.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Millennium releases Faces in the Crowd<\/em><\/strong> onto Blu-ray with a splendid looking 1080p HD transfer. The film is presented with a 2.40 widescreen aspect ratio and the detail level is excellent. The transfer itself is free of dust or scratches while the color array is well balanced without looking oversaturated. Black levels are also really good never showing any pixilation or artifacting.
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AUDIO \u2013 4.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The disc comes with a thumping 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Most of the movie is dialogue heavy coming through the center and front channels so you won\u2019t notice much depth until we get to the club sequence where windows will rattle and the floor will shake. It\u2019s not an overly aggressive lossless track but still quite good.<\/p>\n

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OVERALL \u2013 3.25\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Overall, Faces in the Crowd<\/em><\/strong> hardly breaks new ground in the genre, but it has a few things going for it Milla Jovovich turns in a good performance, the mystery aspects are at least compelling and what writer\/director Magnat does by putting the audience in the main character\u2019s mindset is unique and effective. The Blu-ray itself is light in features but is strong with the audio and video transfers.<\/p>\n

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The Movieman<\/em>
\nPublished: <\/strong>10\/25\/2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faces in the Crowd hardly breaks new ground in the genre, but it has a few things going for it Milla Jovovich turns in a good performance, the mystery aspects are at least compelling and what writer\/director Magnat does by putting the audience in the main character\u2019s mindset is unique and effective.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1129,1130,607,1131],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","tag-faces-in-the-crowd","tag-julian-mcmahon","tag-milla-jovovich","tag-sarah-wayne-callies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25882,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/25882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}