As many know I reviewed this film already (see here), however that was done by seeing a screener sent to me, on the computer screen and the Logitech surround sound speakers, however there’s nothing quite like watching it on a 55-inch television screen, except a theater. Then recently seeing the movie actually on store shelves, such as Best Buy it made me smile because it shows that the movie now has extended past the mere VOD realm. Hence when the Blu-ray film arrived for a follow-up review I thought this is the best way to enter into the area of doing Blu-ray reviews, after all I like the cinema star Gary Oldman, and I will be noting the special features.

First, a recap of the storyline has captain looking to make a better life for his family but the ship turns a deadly course, that’s repeated before many times over, no rescue goes without damage to both lives and souls.

One of the terms I perhaps didn’t mention before is that the ship as a woman figurehead, this was common back to Viking sailing ships, each of the cultures and time periods they represented had different meanings, while today’s modern vessels use names, and paint schemes, the fashion of using them died out with military ships. Herein the figurehead is weather-beaten, used very roughly, hence it echoes of hardship, yet the character David’s first meeting shows the fondness he has for her, it captures with the same love that Christine did with Arnie, taken someone slightly broken and working to reborn and remake them at all costs. It’s interesting to view the crisp changes to her throughout the film and how clear to watch many of the night scenes and feel the claustrophobic elements below deck. This heightens the major differences from VOD to Blu-ray the crispness of the visuals, a very nice transfer, solid audio production, and fuller picture.

Considering the special features, including The Making of Mary, for many films, there’s numerous ways this can be filmed, sometimes on set making of the movie, with background shots and clear impromptu moments or a series of interviews, this film goes in the latter direction, which starts with Gary speaking of his character and that it’s a haunted ship storyline. Emily Mortimer spoke about the realism of a struggling family with their own demons. Stefanie Scott mentioned Michael Goi’s passion for capturing and suggesting horror elements, though it was quite a short clip and felt more as sound bite than actually diving deeper to prep or situations that happened on the set, those are always juicy tales the audience enjoys hearing. It was nice to see that it included screenwriter Anthony Jaswinkski, who noted he came up with the story by reading about the hardship of the ecession from 2008, the economy sinking, thereby destroying their livelihoods, and how to struggle to survive. Lastly, Michael Goi makes an appearance and states the hell he puts the cast through, noting dangers of filming on the actual water than a soundstage, but never elaborates about what took place or even a difficult shot. The entire segment takes only 6-minutes to complete and appears more as a marketing creation than plunging deeper into the bowels of the story. The second set of special features are a bit more entertaining, as it called A Family at Sea, featuring a more in depth moment with Scott and her work on various takes with Mortimer, who had to rise to an equal role with Gary Oldman. An amusing portion had the inclusion of Chloe Perrin of Itsy Bitsy (2019), telling of working with Gary, who she mentions was in some of the Harry Potter films which are a favorite of hers and also that he took time to play I Spy and staring games. Lastly the inclusion of a 9-picutre photo gallery.

Overall, if one is a fan of haunted hip tales or just enjoys Oldman’s work on the screen, it’s a reasonable investment for you buy, aside from that, the difference between VOD or Blu-ray is quite minimal.

Baron’s Blu-ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Blu-ray-Gary-Oldman/dp/B07W8LJNQQ/