Darkman 4K 1990 Ultra HD 2160p

Storyline
Mild-mannered scientist Peyton Westlake, who works out of a lab set up in his loft apartment, is beaten within an inch of his life but assumed dead by criminal Robert Durant and his thugs, Durant solely wanting to retrieve a document discovered by Peyton's lawyer girlfriend Julie Hastings implicating Durant's developer associate Louis Strack, Jr. of offering bribes to get his latest waterfront development passed by the zoning commission, and about which Peyton ostensibly knew nothing. In the aftermath of the lab being destroyed in an explosion set by Durant, Julie knows nothing about Strack being behind what happened let alone that Peyton was targeted or that Peyton survived in only fragments of his body being discovered in her assumption that he perished in the explosion. She further believes that the document was also destroyed in the explosion, while in reality Durant was able to locate it in the loft. Peyton's still alive body is discovered, he only a John Doe, and is operated on by an experimental burn unit whose operation is able to keep him alive albeit permanently physically scarred, but change him fundamentally in three ways: that he no longer is able to feel physical pain; that he has increased physical strength; and that he is emotionally more aggressive to the point of being violent if pushed. Able to escape, Peyton returns to his work in developing synthetic skin. He plans to use this synthetic skin to don disguises in exacting revenge not only on Durant and his entire team of thugs, but on Strack. The problem for Peyton is that he is only able to maintain the skin for ninety-nine minutes in open light in the discovery that the material is light sensitive.

User Review
This movie might have joined the ranks of the utterly forgettable Z-movies of the genre had it not been for excellent direction, superb characterization, and outstanding acting on the part of Liam Neeson, who played Peyton Westlake/Darkman, and Larry Drake, who played his enemy, the arch-villain, Durant. The movie presents the destruction of a man by a psychopathic monster for utterly trivial reasons -- and makes it clear that however horrifying the physical damage perpetrated on Peyton Westlake by Durant's minions might be, the effect on his soul and spirit is far worse. At the same time, it showed that in spite of what happened to him, Westlake/Darkman was able to rise above it at least enough to choose the life of a giver of justice rather than one of evil, as the physically unscarred drug-lord Durant & Co., the _real_ monsters in this film, had. This film does _not_ glamorize psychopathic, criminal violence in any way, but rather shows it for what it really is: repellant, ugly, and contemptible, destroying life and everything that supports it without a qualm for no better reason than cheap thrills or a very minor profit. This is _not_ a typical Hollywood film, nor just a cheap garage-flick monster movie special. It shows with graphic realism exactly what is left when conscience, civilization, and the rest of the more delicate mechanisms that constitute our humanity are stripped away: pure beastliness, without glamour and without redemption of any sort. -- And it shows, as well, that even when everything is taken from a man, he can rise above it, choose to remain a man, however damaged, rather than sinking down to the level of the beast.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (81.3 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Info Audio

#English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
#English: Dolby Digital (Commentary with director Bill Pope)
#English: Dolby Digital (Commentary with filmmaker Josh Ruben)

Info Subtitles

English SDH, Аrabic, Bulgarian, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Indonesian, Korean, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Vietnamese.