[UK] THE GREEN INFERNO Blu-ray Review

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A group of good intentioned student activists travel to the rainforest to protest against the bulldozing. However on their return home, their plane crashes and they are abducted by a tribe of cannibals. Now their fight for survival begins.

Poor Eli Roth. They say God loves a trier, and nobody tries harder than Eli Roth. It’s obvious that Roth has a passion for movies, and no matter how bad the film is, you can always see that Roth has really tried to let his influences show through on screen. But therein lies the problem. Roth likes to pay homage to greats like Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox) and Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), but in doing so he struggles to weave together a coherent plot. The opening with the female lead Justine (Lrenza Izzo) feels contrived. You don’t feel that just because she looks longingly at the activist leader Alejandro (Ariel Levy), that it’s enough to make her change her world view and run off into the jungle.

Once we’re in the jungle the plot pretty much grinds to a halt, and fails to find its feet after that. Some of the activists are dispatched in various gruesome ways, but I think somebody forgot to tell Eli Roth that lots of gore does not a movie make. We as an audience need to feel attached to the activists for us to be caught up in their plight. But we’re not, so we aren’t. Roth fails to create a likeable bunch that you can invest in. Instead it’s a bunch of pompous do gooders that you feel pretty much deserve what they get. It was interesting to see the young kid from ‘Spy Kids’ play a stoner more interested in scoring drugs than saving the rainforest. There are also some totally misjudged attempts at crude comedy, like an incident where one of the captives gets a bad case of explosive diarrhoea.

There is some shockingly bad CGI used in some scenes that is very jarring when it shows up. The gore however, brought to us by the very talented Greg Nicotero, is brilliantly realistic, but it’s not enough to hold your attention. Maybe in this day and age we as viewers have become somewhat desensitised to the violence, so we need more than blood and guts to hold our attention. Storytelling is not Roth’s strongest attribute, and it’s something he really needs to work on if he wants to stick it out making movies. Maybe let someone else write the script, and let him direct it, because as it stands he has struck out on every occasion. It’s a shame as I was really hoping Eli Roth could redeem his poor record with this movie, alas it was not to be.

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I was very impressed with the picture quality on this Blu Ray. Presented in 1080p, MPEG-4 AVC with an aspect ratio 2.39:1, the colours just pop. The green of the trees on the opening credits is beautifully vibrant and is a pleasure for the eyes. The deep reds of the blood really makes the gore show up well. There is no edge enhancement that I could see, and thankfully not a bit of DNR. I think it may be a bit too polished for something that would benefit more from a grimy look.

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The sound on this Blu Ray was really good. I had it set to DTS HD 2.0 and it was very crisp and clear. A few times I had to turn the volume down as the screams where echoing through my room. The noise of eyes being gouged out and tongues being cut off really stands out, and sounds very realistic. There is also an option for 5.1 audio too which I didn’t test as I don’t yet have the set up.

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Supplements? Nothing. Nada. Not a sausage. I must say it’s an epic disappointment to say the least. I was really hoping for some behind the scenes footage of the tribes folk as I had heard they were incredibly nice to work with. Eli Roth had shown them Cannibal Holocaust and they thought it was a comedy. Seeing something like that would’ve been great, but sadly there wasn’t even a trailer. Very poor show.

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So the film was a bit of a disappointment, and the lack of any sort of extras is a shocking letdown, but the well presented picture and sound quality stop this from being a total disaster. One to buy in the sales I’d say. The Green Inferno is available to pre order now and is due for a UK release on February 22nd.

Jonathan McEvoy

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