Congo - VSU 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

I’ve long said that adaptation is a tricky business. Take a novel too literally and you risk a stale retelling of a story folks have already read that doesn't translate to film. Take the source too liberally you risk alienating your built-in audience and worse, delivering a film that bares no resemblance to the source and is therefor bad. Frank Marshall and screenwriter John Patrick Shanley teamed up to hybridize Michael Crichton’s techno-action thriller with an old-school 1930s jungle adventure. for a final product that is a bit dicey and silly, but a wild entertaining ride nonetheless. 

Our primate adventure features a breakout turn from Laura Linney as hard-ass former CIA tech wizard Karen Ross. Working for the mega telecom TraviCom, she’s tasked with traveling to Africa to find her boss’s (Joe Don Baker) missing son (Bruce Campbell) and the source of a mysterious blue diamond that holds the future for the company. To get there, she hijacks an expedition by Dr. Peter Elliot (Dylan Walsh) and his associate Richard (Grant Heslov) to return their talking research ape to the wild with the help of mysterious Romanian philanthropist Herkermer Homolka (a toothy turn from Tim Curry). Hired to lead the expedition is legendary guide and gun-runner Monroe Kelly (Ernie Hudson). A simple search and rescue mission into the Congo becomes a nightmare when they discover the ruins of King Solomon’s diamond mines, and the killer beasts protecting it. 

Right around the same time that I became a voracious reader, Michael Crichton was hitting his career stride as a big best-selling novelist and go-to for major Hollywood blockbusters. After Jurassic Park terrified me for countless theatrical viewings, I started digging into the novels. Some were outright fun and great entertainment, others you could get lost in the techno-babble lingo so severely the only way out was to close the book *cough* Airframe *cough* and never pick it up again. 

Then there was the 1980 novel Congo. A book that out of all of Crichton’s techno adventures is the most balanced and quite possibly the most exciting. The novel had plenty of sluggish descriptions of state-of-the-art telecommunications but it balanced it with plenty of action. The indecipherable tech-blah-blah-blah wasn’t the driving force of the storyline like it was in Jurassic Park. For the first Jurassic Park novel (thankfully not the second), you had to read all of that mumbo-jumbo to get what was going on and why. In Congo, all the stuff with laptops and data transmissions was a little more ancillary. It was the background stuff that wasn’t very important to know all the details but helped push the plot along. It was an exciting read and was probably the first novel that I ever read cover to cover in a single sitting because (maybe two tops) I just couldn’t put it down. 

After languishing for over a decade in development hell, the movie finally came to theaters... 

Upfront, I do love Congo. I really do, but in that schlocky pure entertainment sort of way. It’s a rather pale adaptation of the novel, it certainly doesn’t take itself seriously, but knowing what it was aiming for I can’t help but enjoy the hell out of it. While the novel was an amazing read, the characters at the center of the story were pretty thinly drawn stock character cliches. The novel Karen Ross is just a hard-ass aiming to rise the ranks. The film Karen Ross is ethical and has a heart behind her motivations. Likewise, Monroe is more of a mixed-race Allan Quartermain knockoff in the novel rather than an experienced and sarcastic gun for hire in the film. Little switches like that changed the flavor of the story quite a bit.

While the novel took itself deathly seriously, Frank Marshall’s direction and John Patrick Shanley’s screenplay are geared strictly at having fun. It has a sense of humor about itself. Serious enough to set the stakes, but focused on delivering thrilling action/adventure entertainment. You can see it on the faces of the cast, you can see it in the visual effects, and you can see it in the set design, this movie is here to just be a big fun jungle adventure and that's all. Then you get to the performances - there is so much scenery chewing incredible there was any film left to shoot on. Tim Curry and his accent are enough for the average film to endure but throw in an amazing appearance from Delory Lindo and a sesame cake, a loud fast-talking Joe Pantoliano, and John Hawkes’ death scream and you have an amazing range of talent stealing the film. 

Blasted by critics, Congo still managed to be a respectable box-office success. I admit to being somewhat disappointed watching this film for the first time in theaters, it certainly wasn’t the novel, but it soon grew on me. Taping it off pay-per-view, I watched it numerous times and the film became a staple of my collection. It’s not one I pull off the shelf often, and if I do I usually run my Laserdisc over any other format, but I get a real kick out of it. I love Bruce Cambell’s brief appearance. I enjoyed the hell out of Stan Winston’s creatures - and by extension the film’s focus on more practical effects and locations. And it’s got a heck of a Jerry Goldsmith score to get you in the mood for the adventure of a lifetime. So yeah, not a “great” film, but an incredibly entertaining one.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 

At long last Congo makes the trek onto 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray thanks to the good folks over at Vinegar Syndrome. The tenth feature in their growing VSU deluxe line of releases, this two-disc 4K UHD & Blu-ray comes housed in deluxe packaging, an exclusive slipcover, and a forty-page illustrated booklet featuring a series of essays. Insert art is reversible offering the new custom outerbox art or the original poster art. The 4K version is pressed on a BD100 disc with a Region A BD50 disc serving the 1080p and the bulk of the extras.

Note - Because of Partner Label Month, this set will be back up for sale on the Vinegar Syndrome website December 30th. 

While not the greatest Crichton film to follow the footprints of Jurassic Park, Congo was at least always treated well on home video. Laserdisc, DVD, and the 2014 Blu-ray release were all solid offerings with overall very strong transfers. But, a new 4K scan of the negative and a Dolby Vision HDR pass easily puts those releases out of the running. Shot by Allen Daviau, the film has always had a notable three-dimensional feel to it and that vibe is greatly enhanced in 2160p. From the start, the details are impeccably clear and clean. The discs open to a note from Vinegar Syndrome about the damage done to the negative that has been apparent in past releases with the slight white vertical lines that come and go throughout the film. They’re still there, but it does appear that VS did some work to mitigate the issue. That’s the only “negative” to speak of. Facial features, textures in our ape creatures and fur, costumes, and some of the best plastic plants this side of a sale at Menards are all on display. Film grain is retained for a nice cinematic appeal but nothing that stands out or is too intrusive.  The Dolby Vision grade isn’t overly aggressive but offers some welcome highlights for colors, brightness, and black levels. Without making the film look too dark or anything like that, the DV grading nicely highlights the shadows and darker places. Speaking of the rest of the transfer, the colors are bright and bold with lovely primary saturation and healthy human skin tones. Black spaces are deep and inky with excellent shadows avoiding any crush issues. Again that three-dimensional quality is felt throughout for an often striking transfer for a mid-90s blockbuster feature.

On the audio side, fans can enjoy the impressive DTS-HD MA 5.1 track or a DTS-HD MA 2.0 mix. Sampling some of the 2.0 track, I’d say it works nicely, even in the big action scenes, but the 5.1 is the way to go. Channel priority is right on target letting dialog and key SFX have their spot with Goldsmith’s score filling the soundscape. While a lot of the mix can seem front/center heavy, I did feel like the spread through the sides and into the surrounds was still engaging. Even in a quiet conversation scene on an airplane, there’s the soothing low hum of the engines running through the channels. When the action picks up, the activity matches the scene nicely. Dialog is clear and clean for each track.

On the bonus features front, Vinegar Syndrome once again lays out one hell of a spread to feast on. In addition to an excellent new audio commentary (which is a damned entertaining and informative listen), we get to enjoy plenty of great new retrospectives and making-of materials on top of several archival pieces. The making of the Gorillas segment is nearly an hour of great content with the artisans at Stan Winston’s studio who worked on the film. Not as long, but just as exciting is the make-up team getting to discuss their work. After that, we have the archival making-of narrated by Martin Sheen. The only thing that could have made this bonus features package better would have been a look at the crazy Congo toys with figure parts and accessories that were kitbashed models from Kenner's Alien and Predator figures. 

4K UHD Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Kelly Goodner and Jim Hemphill 

Blu-ray Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Kelly Goodner and Jim Hemphill 
• A Crash Course in Ape School - Looking Back at the Creation of Congo’s Gorillas (HD 49:44)
• Withstand the Test of Time - A Conversation with Congo’s Make-up FX Team (HD 13:07)
• Journey into the Unknown (SD 24:49)
• Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery
• Original Teaser Trailer
• Original Theatrical Trailer

Congo wasn’t the greatest big-budget creature feature adventure film of the 1990s, but it’s a fun run. A middling adaptation of the best-selling novel, the film might lean a little camp, but with a solid ensemble cast, and some great creature effects work, Congo is an adventure worth undertaking. On 4K from Vinegar Syndrome, this fan-favorite guilty pleasure scores a terrific Dolby Vision presentation, solid audio, and a fun assortment of new and archival bonus features. Highly Recommended