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| Dvdivas
was founded by John Gabbard in 2000. It's purpose has been and
remains to be to provide you, the entertainment community with
the latest dvds and movie reviews. It will continue to be your
link to the most popular dvd movies. |
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“Airwolf:
The Complete First Season"
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Reviewed
by: |
Wayne A. Klein |
| Genre: |
Action |
| Video: |
1.33:1 Full
screen |
| Audio: |
Dolby Digital
1.0 (mono) |
| Languages |
English |
| Subtitles |
English,
Spanish, French |
| Length |
592 minutes
|
| Rating |
NR |
| Release Date |
5/24/05 |
| Studio |
Universal
Home Video |
| Commentary:
|
None |
| Documentaries:
|
None |
| Featurettes:
|
None |
| Filmography/Biography:
|
None |
|
Interviews: |
None |
| Trailers/TV
Spots: |
Previews |
| Alternate/Deleted
Scenes: |
None |
| Music
Video: |
None |
| Other:
|
None |
| Cast
and Crew: |
Jan-Michael
Vincent, Ernest Borgnine, Alex Cord |
| Written
By: |
Donald P.
Bellisario, Robert Blees, Deborah Pratt |
| Produced
By: |
Donald P.
Bellisario |
| Directed
By: |
Donald P.
Bellisario, Don Chaffey, Daniel Haller |
| Music:
|
Sylvester
Levay |
| The
Review: |
I have the feeling that when someone
went looking for “Miami Vice” in the vault to prep it for
its DVD release, they stumbled upon “Airwolf”. Surprisingly
the series (not one of Donald P. Bellisario’s shining moments)
survived only two years in this incarnation. It was brought
back in 1987 with a new cast as “Airwolf II”. The 80’s were
a great time for cheesy TV shows with muscle. “Airwolf” fit
the bill for high octane action entertainment (borrowing from
the film “Blue Thunder”) with simple Cold War storylines.
Although a lot of fun, I doubt that most fan would take “Airwolf”
all that seriously (at least I hope not). Flying faster than
Mach 1, Airwolf was developed as a tactical weapon to get
through enemy lines undetected with maximum fire power for
defense. Developed by “The Firm” (no, not the bombastic rock
group from the 90’s but a covert C.I.A. cell). Moody pilot
Stringfellow Hawke (Vincent) is asked to retrieve the helicopter
when its creator steals it. Hawke ends up flying missions
for “The Firm” and its leader Archangel (Alex Cord). His co-pilot
is his friend the jovial Dominic (Borgnine).
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| Image
and Sound: |
With all
of its meager marketing budget devoted to obtaining a nice transfer,
“Airwolf” looks decent in this DVD release. There’s the usual
grit and dirt one would expect with a series from the 80’s but,
on the whole, the analog imperfections are pretty minimal. As
expected the stock footage looks the worse for the wear (much
like “Baa Baa Black Sheep”). There’s occasional edge enhancement
in some episodes but, surprisingly, the series looks good with
nice color reproduction. Although the colors have faded a bit,
the series looks pretty good overall. Night shots suffer the
most here with poor resolution and little detail evident. The
mono sound has nice presence but not much in the way of dynamic
range (which is no surprise). Although muffled a bit the soundtrack
sounds pretty decent overall. The worst part for me is the fact
that these are presented on dual sided dual layered discs. Since
tey tend not to handle wear and tear quite as well as single
sided dual layered discs, I wish Universal had presented the
series in that format. --- |
| The
Extras: |
Are you
kidding? A featurette on the conversion of the Bell 222 to
Airwolf would have been nice. Also, since the original helicopter
was sold off after the series was cancelled and used as an
air ambulance, it might have been interesting to hear about
its missions, history and the crash that destroyed it when
it was on one of its missions. I’m sure that Universal is
getting its chops busted by fans as the box which houses the
Amaray cases has photos from “Airwolf II” on the back and
not the original cast and episodes. Oh well, accidents happen.
What’s inexcusable is the lack of extras in this set. Each
episode has a nice summary and the original airdate. We do
get the original pilot episode "Airwolf: The Movie" as art
of the set (unlike some of the other series Universal has
released) so that's good news. ---
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| Commentary:
|
This would
have been a nice feature particularly from the pilots who flew
the Bell 222 that stood in for Airwolf. |
| Final
Words: |
A popular
80’s cult series finally arrives on DVD sans extras or commentary.
“Airwolf” looks decent although the transfer could have used
a bit more work. While the newer footage looks pretty good a
lot of the time, the stock footage is (not surprising) grainy
and marred with loads of analog imperfections. The quality of
the video transfer varies significantly within a single episode
from OK to good with night scenes suffering the most due to
a lack of detail and really, really dark image. I appreciate
that Universal has been putting many of these cult series out
on DVD but since these are likely to remain the only DVD transfers
of the series, it would have been nice if they had spiffed up
the video image a bit more and included extras about the show.
Sadly, if fans don’t buy this Universal probably won’t put out
the second season so the best way to protest the presentation
of this series (if you on’t like it) is to write Universal via
their website. |
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