Lincoln is a Steven Spielberg film with great acting and production value. It was a hit with the audience and earned Daniel Day-Lewis a best actor Oscar.
For me, it was mediocre.
The way the story is presented is fascinating. It doesn’t show big Civil War battles and focuses on the passing of the 13th amendment, the law abolishing slavery. As much as I wanted to get into the movie, I couldn’t do it. Spielberg’s presentation of the movie felt like a stage play to me. The delivery of the lines sounded like it was for a live show. This reason alone made me conscious everyone was just acting. Sure, Day-Lewis’ acting was great but it didn’t seem natural to me. It seemed like he was basing Lincoln off speeches, so everytime he spoke, it was always dramatic.
The politics behind passing the 13th amendment was more work than I thought. Lincoln had to delegate both the republicans and democrats. Back in the days, the republicans had the views of the liberals today and vice versa. Lincoln was a republican. The movie shows Lincoln as a master strategist, dealing with the Civil War and trying to abolish the slavery at the same time. He had to ask for favors but the movie clearly showed, he never backed down from his moral beliefs.
I can see why the movie was well liked but I couldn’t get over the delivery of the lines.
The videos is presented in 2.35:1 1080p HD. The transfer is impressive since it uses a lot of blacks and shadows, yet it’s still easy to tell what’s going on. I’d say this has the best cinematography out of all Spielberg’s work. There’s no compression artifacts and that’s a compliment because it’s the easiest to spot them when there’s a lot of dark images. Picture is sharp and the color looks natural.
The audio is presented in 7.1 DTS HD but most of the sound comes from the center speaker. This movie isn’t action packed so surround isn’t used much besides the sound effects of rain and people chatting. Dialogue is clear and concise and that’s what matters the most.
The extras are impressive in this 4 disc set. There’s more than an hour of behind the scenes look in its own blu-ray. The extras are presented in HD, they are:
The Journey To Lincoln, A Historic Tapestry: Richmond Viriginia, In The Company Of Character, Crafting The Past, Living With Lincoln and In Lincoln’s Footsteps.
Out of all the featurettes, I liked Crafting The Past the best as it talks about the production design and the details they went through to make it as authentic as possible.
Overall, Lincoln is a technical masterpiece. Cinematography and production design is great. Even John Williams’ score isn’t so glaring and it fits perfectly with the movie. For me the dialogue was the biggest issue and I couldn’t enjoy it as much as the critics and movie goers alike. The release of the 4 disc blu-ray set is great. The video and audio is perfect and the extras are bountiful.
Grade: B
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