I’ve had the Blu-ray of The Gladiator on my shelf since late last year, pondering whether I should do a review. I should have, but other titles kept bobbing to the surface.
It would have been unpleasant doing it, because I would have had to sit through the movie, paying close attention. But even when I was having a very cursory look when I first indexed the disc, it was apparent that the transfer was really rather poor. Various sites around the place have noted the noise, the appearance of upscaling, the lack of detail. What got me was that in one scene the encode was so poor that parts of the picture seemed to be moving independently of other parts. At 1:16:05 on the extended version, or 1:11:55 of the theatrical version, a stone wall in the foreground has a slight wobble, compared to the background foliage, as though it were on a fake set. Very poor.
Anyway, a review is now unnecessary since overseas a new ’10th Anniversary’ version has been released, with lovely picture quality. It doesn’t appear to be here yet. I shall enquire.
Update (11 August 2010, 12:49pm): Yes, Universal ‘hope[s] to announce it soon’ for release in Australia.