The Man With The Golden Gun (Special Edition) [DVD] - James Bond 007 Action Movie, Collector's Edition for Movie Nights & Gift Giving

A lot of viewers love to pan this movie for being an oddball among Bond movies. But they miss the point. Virtually every Bond movie that was introduced has had to distinguish itself from its predecessors. "The Man With The Golden Gun" really succeeded in this respect. Whether you find the screenplay or the locales weird is irrelevant. Being a product of '74, you really need to make a few allowances for the dated music and humor. Notice that I didn't mention screenplay. With so many cheesy Hollywood remakes these days, "The Man With The Golden Gun" appears even more attractive now. Most of Hollywood's movies today make this movie seem like an epic masterpiece. Steve Axmaker, the critic who wrote the description of this film and discredited the script desperately needs to get a reality check. I'll take Lulu's wacky theme song for this movie over most of the 5-minute compositions available over the raw sewage (Clear Channel junk) from current terrestrial radio any day. The corkscrew car jumping stunt is also much more believable than a Bond car that becomes invisible in one of Pierce Brosnan's Bond movies, to say nothing of the CGI special effects used as crutches today in nearly all of Hollywood's action movies. Anyway, I've made my point.Is it worth your BluRay purchase??? Well, anyone using a decent display to view this BluRay release of "The Man With The Golden Gun" will not be disappointed. The picture is crisp, solid and punchy with excellent contrast and color accuracy. The slightly visible film grain doesn't hurt the BluRay version's visual impact either. If you're a home theater buff, you should be absolutely amazed at the job the recording engineers did to restore the soundtrack. The original soundtrack for this movie was actually monaural. But the sound quality underwent such a complete and skillful makeover that you'd be hardpressed to know this if you are watching this movie for the first time. Unlike some movies where the audio restoration only involves including a surround version of the music soundtrack (leaving dialog and sound effects anchored at the center channel under your display), this movie went through every conceivable enhancement while avoiding audible side effects. Sound effects are effectively panned across different channels and, when appropriate, isolated within discrete channels. Unlike previous video releases and the original theatrical release, the much wider dynamic range (difference between the softest and loudest passages) of the original master tapes has also been preserved for the BluRay version. This is most noticeable when comparing the volume of the dialog during normal conversation to music and sound effects during action sequences. The updated sound quality also applies to bass extension where the low frequency effects (bass) channel produces deep bass in scenes that warrant it (most noticeable when the private home of Christopher Lee's character, Francisco Scaramanga, self-destructs). All in all, a great use of the video and DTS Master soundtrack capability of the BluRay format. Well done.