Leviathan is a 1989 creature-feature staring Peter Weller, directed by George P. Cosmatos written by David Webb Peoples and Jeb Stuart, with Cinematography by Alex Thomson. Since this movie hasn’t had a satisfactory Blu-ray release, I thought I’d take a look at the iTunes HD version.
A deep sea mining crew stumble across the wreck of a Soviet military ship, whose loss apparently hasn’t been recorded. Accidentally exposing themselves to a potent mutagen, the mutated crew members began picking off the survivors one-by-one.
The crew divide the spoils of the Soviet shipwreck.
The supporting cast are all recognizable faces, including Amanda Pays, Meg Foster, Richard Crenna, Daniel Stern. and Ernie Hudson, and Peter Weller adds some weight to the cast. But we are playing strictly for B-movie thrills.
Some parts of the film look a lot like Alien 3, which shares a cinematographer.
Stan Winston special-effects and Ron Cobb production design give this movie a strong Aliens/Abyss texture. This is further enhanced by the cinematographer Alex Thomson who would go on to shoot Alien 3.
While the right ingredients are all present, they don’t seem to gel right. The characters are a bit bland, and the plot of the film could uncharitably be described as ‘An Alien rip-off’, but then again, Alien itself wasn’t exactly original. Still, some of the body horror effects are still pretty scary. Added to which the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, so it’s hard to hate the movie.
A few elements are disappointing, the creature is off-screen for much of the film, and when it appears, it’s not much to look at. The final confrontation with the creature could be summed up in a single word: dumb.
Ultimately the Leviathan didn’t draw too much box-office, it was released in the same year as two other ‘oil right under the sea’ features: ‘The Abyss’, and ‘Deep Star Six’ and sits in the middle of the two in terms of quality.
Leviathan on iTunes HD
Amanda Pays.
Apparently this film has only been released in HD as a disappointing German Blu-ray in the wrong aspect ratio. I can happily say that the iTunes rental version is present in both real high-definition (rather than upscaled), and at the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Grain is present throughout, though a little suppressed looking in places, probably as a result of bit-rate starvation. Colors seem both natural and appropriate for a movie of this era, and overall it looks pretty good.
Peter Weller.
Unfortunately the main negative appears to be the encoding, which given the limited bit-rate simply can’t cope with the material, resulting in frequent artifacting. For some reason the average bit-rate for the entire feature is only 4.01 Mbps, and while peeks touch 13.2 Mbps, the rest of the time the feature hovers between 2 and 4 Mbps, which is simply not enough to remain artifact free, even during low motion.
The 1080p download clocks in at 2.92 GB with stereo AAC soundtrack.
Conclusion
Another Alien 3 moment from Leviathan.
Fair: 3/5. A fair transfer of a 1980s creature feature, deducting two points for artifacting which is the result of the lower than normal 4 Mbps encoding bit-rate.
A definite upgrade if you are a fan, or as part of an underwater triple feature with the Abyss and Deep Star Six. However perfectionists may want to wait to see if any Blu-ray release looks better.
iTunes 1080p Screenshots
Underwater sequences were shot dry ‘wet’.
Production design in B-movies always falls apart a little bit when it comes to weapons.
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