8 Mile on Blu-ray Disc Review by Brandon A. DuHamel on BigPictureBigSound

Blu-ray Disc and DVD : Blu-ray Disc Reviews

Published: 2009-03-23 - 09:43:39

8 Mile on Blu-ray Disc Review

By Brandon A. DuHamel

The Film

In 2002, the seemingly inescapable Marshall Mathers -- better known by his pseudonym Eminem -- did what seems like most hugely successful Rap artists do these days, and that is make a movie. Directed by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), 8 Mile was a semi-autobiographical film about a struggling white, trailer-trash rapper from Detroit with a dysfunctional home life trying to make it in the mostly black world of Rap, in the economically depressed and culturally segregated city. The title of the film itself refers to a stretch of road that separates the mostly black, poor city of Detroit from the predominantly white and wealthy northern suburbs.

Surprisingly, and quite unexpectedly, Eminem's performance as Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith and the film in general were both far better than one would have expected. Of course, nothing contained within was wholly original or completely shocking. Poor struggling working class guy with troubles at home and girlfriend issues uses music as an escape and battles with rivals while struggling for acceptance -- the story has appeared in Saturday Night Fever and even in 1984's semi-autobiographical mega-hit by that other Upper Mid-Westerner, Prince, Purple Rain. Also, Eminem was never exactly silent on the subject of his past, so many of the general themes running through 8 Mile would be familiar to anyone who happened by MTV or a tabloid once in a while.

Still, though his acting skills were hardly genius, they were -- again -- surprisingly good, and his support from Mekhi Phifer as Rabbit's friend Future, in particular, made the film's palpability even more effective. 8 Mile is not without its flaws, however. Most of the female characters are generic and utterly forgettable. Rabbit's mother Stephanie, played by Kim Basinger, is co-dependent, self-destructive and possibly abusive whilst his current girlfriend Alex (Brittany Murphy) is your typical two-timing, untrustworthy tramp. The relationship with his ex-girlfriend Janeane (Taryn Manning) is explored so thinly, one can't ever figure out why they are seemingly at odds.

They also missed a golden opportunity to examine more closely what is so obvious -- the racial and economic aspects of 8 Mile, a white Hip-Hop artist from a trailer park with black friends in a black urban world of Hip-Hop. The problems facing Detroit, what exactly these people are trying so hard with their music to get away from is never even delved into in 8 Mile.

The film does deliver for Hip-Hop fans, however, in the various freestyle rap battles (competitions in which rappers square off against each other in improvised raps, usually attacking each other's weaknesses) throughout. The culminating freestyle battle that ends the film is not to be missed by any true fan of the genre.

For another take on this film check out Joe Lozito's theatrical review of 8 Mile.

The Picture

The original look of 8 Mile is gritty, with a bit of a muted color palette and slight bluish tinge. The transfer to Blu-ray Disc from Universal of its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and VC-1 encoding preserves that look faithfully, without adding any unwanted artifacts. The shadow detail is excellent with strong blacks; detail is good, but not great. Foreground shots show a lot of texture in clothing and skin, but details in backgrounds and long shots are a bit soft.

The Sound

Universal has provided 8 Mile with a fine lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio mix that is active enough to capture the sounds of urban Detroit along with the sounds of the sheet metal stamping plant and the surprisingly dialogue-heavy script. Of course, with a film so focused on Hip-Hop, the question undoubtedly arises -- how is the bass? Well, 8 Mile's low frequency extension is not the deepest I have ever heard for a Blu-ray release, but that is not surprising considering it is not an action film with loads of explosions. What is does have is plenty of musically balanced low-end that is just that right amount of bottom for a Rap movie. There is also plenty of discrete information in the surround channels, especially in the scenes at "The Shelter" where the battles take place.

8 Mile on Blu-ray also has French and Spanish dubbed DTS 5.1 audio options available with English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles.

The Extras

The supplements are unusually slim on this release from Universal, with an absence of their typical "U-Control" picture-in-picture commentaries and other interactive features. There is no BD-Live available either, but they have still provided the ability to select and save customized scene clips, provided your player is equipped with enough storage in the form of an SD card, USB flash drive, or hard drive, depending on your model.

The extras available on this release are:

The Making of 8 Mile (4:3/SD) --Director Curtis Hanson discusses working with Eminem to create 8 Mile and the rapper talks about his experience filming the movie and his life growing up in Detroit.
Exclusive Rap Battles -- Uncensored (4:3/SD) -- During filming of the freestyle battle segments, director Curtis Hanson decided to hold a freestyle competition with the extras that made up the crowd to cull 3 people to film a freestyle battle sequence with Eminem to be used in the film. 134 people competed, narrowed down to 20 finalists, then eventually 4 people were chosen for the film. These auditions, and freestyle battles, including the ones with Eminem, which were originally intended for him to only be pantomiming, are presented here uncensored.
"Superman" Music Video -- Uncensored (4:3/SD) -- The uncensored version

Final Thoughts

Eminem actually pulled it off and 8 Mile is a far better film than I (and probably a lot of other people) expected it to be. For his fans and Hip-Hop fans in general, this is a good film to watch, but for anyone interested in a story about the struggle for redemption and keeping the glimmer of hope alive in the bleakest of circumstances, 8 Mile also delivers.

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