Review of Vanishing, The

Introduction

You may not know very much about this film, and what you do know probably goes something like this. This is the 1993 re-make of a 1988 film called Spoorloos, which was adapted from a book called The Golden Egg by Hans Maarten Timotheus Krabbé (Tim to his friends). Interestingly, this re-make is helmed by the original director, and moves location from Holland to the USA. He picks up a reasonable cast for the re-make too, with Nancy Travis, (probably only really known for So I Married An Axe Murderer), Kiefer Sutherland (now impressing TV audiences in 24) and Jeff Bridges, most recently on our screens in the very under-rated K-PAX.

The story is outlined in the disc details above.

Video

A reasonable 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, which is reasonably free from dirt, dust and grain. There are one or two moments where it`s not at its best, but given that it`s nearly 10 years old and not a major title, it all looks pretty good.

There`s not much to excite visually, although see if you can spot yet another inaccurate film portrayal of a computer...

Audio

A DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, which is adequate for what the film has to offer. There aren`t any real "big" soundtrack moments, so stereo is good enough. You`ll also find a Jerry Goldsmith score lurking in the background. This is an average effort from the veteran of over 250 scores...

Features

A trailer. That`s it. What`s really needed is an interview with the director, with just one question asked - "why the hell did you re-make this film"?

Conclusion

An utterly pointless re-make of an excellent film. Can the director have agreed to re-make this for any reason other than money? The original was excellent, intelligent, tense, chilling, and had the correct ending. This version is awful, and the ending is an insult. Everything in the original that was good has been turned bad by the person who made it good in the first place.

Avoid this at almost all costs. See the original which is due for release on DVD in region 2 in July 2002. Only after seeing that should you watch this version, just to see what a mess it is.