UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - What Lies Beneath -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

What Lies Beneath - now with a quarter of a century of bottle age, doesn't play a great deal better than it did upon release, but filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and his stalwart cast, led by Harrison Ford and Michelle Pheiffer still give us a fun experience. I've always wondered what this might have been like with a more thought out screenplay.

Scream Factory presents the film with a lovely image harvest that appears much akin to a 35mm print. Beautifully detailed, with great color, and a nice sheen of film grain.

Audio is likewise beautifully rendered via DTS-HD MA 5.1.

Shout/Scream continue their move into releases with a plethora of great extras, and here they've invested heavily, inclusive of a future length documentary.

Worth the two hour investment of time if you can get past the more pedestrian attributes of the tale.


Image (Dolby Vision)

Forensic - 10
NSD - 10

Audio – 10 (DTS-HD MA 5.1)

Pass / Fail – Pass

Plays nicely with projectors - Yes

Makes use of and works well in 4k - 7.5

Upgrade from Blu-ray - Yes

Worth your attention - If you're seeking easy mindless entertainment

Slipcover rating - 2

Looks like Film - 10

Recommended



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https://www.amazon.com/What-Lies-Beneath-Anniversary-Collectors/dp/B0DZ271BW1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UZ93TN08BPDQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Sg1Oq4FBkenu3_gy3rCySUzdTUI4WJ0aN6Dyr6swNSHXae6OeJxtwpXdy39lj6_rIBeEH92yq9gpWSIYwikIfg.tKUlMr78AqrBLqO8TdnGq1gJ6UkIiMitb1Fg60qCFpM&dib_tag=se&keywords=what+lies+beneath+4k&qid=1745308902&sprefix=what+lies+beneath+,aps,180&sr=8-1

 

[SD_Brian]

What Lies Beneath was the movie where, at least in my opinion, Robert Zemeckis jumped the shark.

 

[TheSteig]

Ill be glad to upgrade this one. I hope Sky Captain gets a good review too

 

[TonyD]

I really didn't like this movie when it came out.
Haven't watched it since seeing it at the movies.

Might need to watch it again just to see what I hated about it.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Interesting that this film has come up here now. I saw it on a list of "horror classics" on the interwebs. I thought "That was not a classic." or at least it did not seem so at the time. It was one of the films that got me thinking that over time, what people think of as a "classic" changes because in the timeframe they have lived in...well...this film is a classic. It is, as Mr. Harris notes, 25 years old putting it firmly, at least in terms of age, in the general vicinity of classic.

Now, I also have not seen this in a very long time. Maybe I should go back and watch it again. Will it seem a classic this time or will the slipcover rating in the review above be my rating of the film itself?

I just know this, to some people, somewhere out there in the vast recesses of the world wide web, this film has achieved classic status and now apparently has the 4K disc a classic film deserves. Maybe it is now ripe for rediscovery.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I just know this, to some people, somewhere out there in the vast recesses of the world wide web, this film has achieved classic status and now apparently has the 4K disc a classic film deserves. Maybe it is now ripe for rediscovery.

I don't know about that because I've seen too many films to count that are not classics but still received 4K/UHD releases.

 

[Keith Cobby]

Doesn't 'classic' refer to quality and not just age. What Lies Beneath is just old(ish), I haven't seen it since it's theatrical release and didn't care for it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Doesn't 'classic' refer to quality and not just age. What Lies Beneath is just old(ish), I haven't seen it since it's theatrical release and didn't care for it.

It does to me. However people can define it as they please to do so.

 

[TravisR]

Interesting that this film has come up here now. I saw it on a list of "horror classics" on the interwebs. I thought "That was not a classic." or at least it did not seem so at the time. It was one of the films that got me thinking that over time, what people think of as a "classic" changes because in the timeframe they have lived in...well...this film is a classic. It is, as Mr. Harris notes, 25 years old putting it firmly, at least in terms of age, in the general vicinity of classic.

I think the movie is... fine but I think there's a group of people that really like the movie and between that, its stars and its age, it's now deemed a classic by some.

What Lies Beneath was the movie where, at least in my opinion, Robert Zemeckis jumped the shark.

Yeah, the movies he made from here on aren't as good as what he made before but I will always highlight The Walk. I think that is Zemeckis' best movie since the BTTF sequels.

 

[PatrickDA]

The setup and maybe the first hour contain some of Zemeckis' best work, however, the ridiculous third act torpedoes the whole affair.

 

[Tommy R]

I thought it was great. Super underrated!

 

[Wayne Klein]

I think it’s flawed but Harrison Ford and Michele Pfieffer give excellent performances. It’s entertaining. Hardly a jump the sharp film for me. It’s a very good well made and entertaining flick.

 

[Bill Street]

I think the term "classic" is in the eye of the beholder. Other than that, unfortunately classic has just become a marketing word.

 

[FatherDude]

Though this got sold and received as a Hitchcock tribute, I always thought the go-for-broke, supernatural direction it takes was a bellwether, anticipating movies like THE RING, THE GRUDGE, and other J-Horror imports. There are tons of Hitchcock quotations in this, yes, but viewing it purely as a throwback exercise does not I think do enough justice to the areas in which it's fairly forward-facing, stylistically.

 

[JoshZ]

What Lies Beneath was the movie where, at least in my opinion, Robert Zemeckis jumped the shark.

(Sorry, responding to an old post. I didn't check this thread until now.)

For me, Zemeckis has had an extremely complicated career. His run from Romancing the Stone to Back to the Future Part III (inclusive of Roger Rabbit in between) put him in the conversation for all-time great filmmakers. However, Death Becomes Her was a serious stumble. And Best Picture win or not, to me, Forrest Gump was not just a jump-the-shark moment, but a "jump the shark and do a triple backflip while flipping the bird with both hands and then explode in mid-air" debacle. There are very few movies I loathe as intensely as that one.

But then he followed that up with Contact, which was a fabulous recovery.

What Lies Beneath was another stumble, but Cast Away was pretty great.

Then he got stuck in a rut of mo-cap animated movies that all sucked. In recent years, he's sort of settled into middling wannabe "prestige" dramas, none of which have worked as well as he wanted.

The unevenness of his output is extremely frustrating. Now in his mid-70s, I'm not sure he has another great movie left in him before he goes, but I'd like to think so.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Personally, I think Forrest Gump is one of the best movies ever made in the 1990s. However, what do I know except what I like in cinema because I can understand why other people wouldn't like it.

 

[SD_Brian]

(Sorry, responding to an old post. I didn't check this thread until now.)

For me, Zemeckis has had an extremely complicated career. His run from Romancing the Stone to Back to the Future Part III (inclusive of Roger Rabbit in between) put him in the conversation for all-time great filmmakers. However, Death Becomes Her was a serious stumble. And Best Picture win or not, to me, Forrest Gump was not just a jump-the-shark moment, but a "jump the shark and do a triple backflip while flipping the bird with both hands and then explode in mid-air" debacle. There are very few movies I loathe as intensely as that one.

But then he followed that up with Contact, which was a fabulous recovery.

What Lies Beneath was another stumble, but Cast Away was pretty great.

Then he got stuck in a rut of mo-cap animated movies that all sucked. In recent years, he's sort of settled into middling wannabe "prestige" dramas, none of which have worked as well as he wanted.

The unevenness of his output is extremely frustrating. Now in his mid-70s, I'm not sure he has another great movie left in him before he goes, but I'd like to think so.

What Lies Beneath was famously filmed while the Cast Away production was on hiatus so Tom Hanks could lose weight. WLB was released first, but in my mind, I always think of it coming after Cast Away.

Even when I wrote my post, I was questioning if WLB was Zemeckis's definitive Jump-the-Shark moment: There are certainly a few candidates. I considered the Back to the Future sequels as potential shark-jumping moments, but it turned out those were only dolphins. We'll have to agree to disagree about Death Becomes Her and Forrest Gump, but while I'm a fan of Forrest Gump, I could definitely see a case being made for it as the shark jumping moment, since Zemeckis seemed to stop being fun after his Oscar win, and started making Big Important Movies.

 

[Worth]

(Sorry, responding to an old post. I didn't check this thread until now.)

For me, Zemeckis has had an extremely complicated career. His run from Romancing the Stone to Back to the Future Part III (inclusive of Roger Rabbit in between) put him in the conversation for all-time great filmmakers. However, Death Becomes Her was a serious stumble. And Best Picture win or not, to me, Forrest Gump was not just a jump-the-shark moment, but a "jump the shark and do a triple backflip while flipping the bird with both hands and then explode in mid-air" debacle. There are very few movies I loathe as intensely as that one.

But then he followed that up with Contact, which was a fabulous recovery.

What Lies Beneath was another stumble, but Cast Away was pretty great.

Then he got stuck in a rut of mo-cap animated movies that all sucked. In recent years, he's sort of settled into middling wannabe "prestige" dramas, none of which have worked as well as he wanted.

The unevenness of his output is extremely frustrating. Now in his mid-70s, I'm not sure he has another great movie left in him before he goes, but I'd like to think so.

He's gone down the same digital rabbit hole as George Lucas and Peter Jackson and, oddly, Ang Lee - more interested in the technology than telling an interesting story.

 

[TravisR]

Personally, I think Forrest Gump is one of the best movies ever made in the 1990s. However, what do I know except what I like in cinema because I can understand why other people wouldn't like it.

Personally, I think Forrest Gump gets too much flack and with massive box office and Oscar success, it's an easy target. I understand the criticisms of it but I certainly don't think it's as bad as I've seen its critics declare it. History is written by the winners so with the movie being a huge hit, its Oscar wins and it being the movie where Tom Hanks fully became THE Tom Hanks, it's guaranteed that Gump will be long remembered long after I'm dead.

...while I'm a fan of Forrest Gump, I could definitely see a case being made for it as the shark jumping moment, since Zemeckis seemed to stop being fun after his Oscar win, and started making Big Important Movies.

I can see that. When you look at movies like 1941, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Used Cars or Back To The Future, you can see the guys writing those movies were zany dorks just having fun and nowadays, he's making much more serious movies. There's nothing wrong with the personal growth on Zemeckis' part but I do miss the 'fun' side of him from his early days.

 

[FatherDude]

Zemeckis has become a reliable punching bag starting with his mo-cap outings, but he’s produced a fairly incredible filmography, and some of his latter-day works deserve to be defended. I’m not standing up for WELCOME TO MARWEN or those remakes, but THE POLAR EXPRESS didn’t become a perennial Christmas favorite for an entire generation by accident, and BEOWULF, FLIGHT, THE WALK, and ALLIED are all, at bare minimum, entertaining movies. I also think HERE was pretty mistreated last year as well. Sure, it was as syrup-y as it looked like it was going to be, but it executed on its concept quite well, I thought. It was kind of off-putting how delighted people seemed to be to take down a mid-budget theatrical movie aimed at adults. I’m not sure they grasped what they were celebrating the death of.

It's interesting to examine Zemeckis’s body of work in light of his being, sort of, a Spielberg acolyte, because the start of his career promised the arrival of something like an edgier, more rambunctious Spielberg. I think his first two movies, I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND and USED CARS, are still among his best, and in a way the latter is the movie Spielberg tried to make with 1941 (which Zemeckis had a hand in writing), but he was ultimately too much of a showman to really roll around in the mud with the material. And yet, when Zemeckis is in sentimentality mode, he can be guilty of being even more treacly than his mentor – and that’s really saying something. It’s wild when those personalities collide.

Even FORREST GUMP, for all its saccharine sincerity, has those stray flashes of subversive, acerbic humor more in line with USED CARS Zemeckis (or the novel), like the gag revealing Forrest’s ancestor as a founding member of the KKK, or everybody flocking around an idiot savant because they’re convinced he Has The Answers. I also thought the moment when the army guy cuts off Forrest’s mic when he’s giving his speech about the reality of Vietnam does a lot to erode its position as a conservative paean to conformity, which it’s sometimes accused of being, though I guess when you pander so aggressively to a certain kind of generational nostalgia, you can only deny your complicity in it so convincingly.