I first watched Cruel Intentions back in 1999 while in college on a date. So watching it again in glorious HD brought back a lot of fond memories.
This film centers around Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe), two wealthy, manipulative teenage step-siblings from Manhattan’s upper crust, who conspire in Cruel Intentions, an immensely entertaining tale of seduction and betrayal. The stakes are high when the duo agrees upon a deliciously diabolical wager of sexual conquest without consequences. The pawns – The naive Celcile Caldwell (Selma Blair) and the virginal Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon). Its summer break, and Kathryn has been dumped by her beau, Court Reynolds, for the innocent Cecile. Desperate to get even, Kathryn challenges Sebastian to ruin Celcile by deflowering her and turning her into a tramp – thus humiliating Court by delivering Cecile to him as damaged goods. Sebastian has pretty much “had” all of the girls in New York City up to this point, and he’s gotten a bit bored of it all. Though this is too easy a conquest for him, he obliges.
He sets his sights on a greater challenge – the new headmaster’s daughter, Annette, who recently wrote an article in Seventeen Magazine about how she intends to stay pure until she marries her boyfriend. Sebastian bets Kathryn that he can seduce the chaste and pristine Annette before school begins in the fall. Kathryn thinks this feat impossible and quickly agrees to the wager. The stakes: if Sebastian succeeds, Kathryn must give him a night of unbridled pleasure, something’s he’s wanted since their parents got married. If he fails, he must forfeit his priceless 1956 Jaguar to Kathryn and suffer the shame of defeat.
Video
For this transfer, Sony went with a Blu-ray 50 GB disc (BD50) and an AVC 1.85:1 encode, averaging around 28- 32 Mbps. This transfer is nothing short of great, especially for a film now 10 years old. This film exhibited little to no film grain and the transfer was absent of any type of film debris. Much of this film involves dark or night scenes, all of which look superb as well. Flesh tones were spot-on and detail was excellent. This transfer also presented no noise to my eye, a welcomed attribute for several bright scenes in the film. Colors were absolutely stunning and vibrant with this transfer. Overall this new Blu-ray transfer is a substantial upgrade over the DVD version of this film.
Audio
Audio is an additional area where this new transfer excels over its DVD counterpart. I watched this film using the PCM 5.1 sound format at a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps. The overall sound of the film is very clear, powerful and encompassing. Dialog now can be heard very well with details you may have missed on the DVD release. This film however makes little use of the LFE or surrounds. In-fact this film really has few scenes where these features could be used anyway.
Special Features
This new Blu-ray release of Cruel Intentions has a fair amount of special features. On this disc you will find the following extras
- Filmmaker?s Audio Commentary
- Deleted Scenes
- Making Of The Featurette
- Creative Intentions: Finding A Visual Style
- Music Video: ?Coming Up From Behind? By Marcy Playground
- Music Video: ?Every You Every Me? By Placebo
Final Thoughts
I am EXTREMELY pleased with the picture quality of this release. It completely beat my expectations by far. Every scene is sharp and vibrant, free of film debris and free of noise. The audio too is improved, albeit not substantially over the DVD version of this film. To top it off the special features are quite entertaining and interesting. So if you are a fan of this film, I can confidently recommend upgrading to the Blu-ray version.
