Sarah Michelle Gellar

A solid film that does its best to rise above being another teen movie. But there’s something about Sarah Michelle Gellar that has never sat right with me. Cruel Intentions tells the wicked tale of Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe). As step brother and sister, they seem to delight in ruining the lives of others. Things get complicated when when Kathryn and Sebastian decide to play games with Annette (Reese Witherspoon), who just happens to be the Headmaster of their school’s daughter. That she’s supposed to be some object of total purity (and in real life that’s how Witherspoon came off at that time) isn’t lost at all on viewers. If Sebastian can pull this off he gets to sleep with his step sister. If he can’t, well she gets his jag. There are a bunch of other subplots mixed into the movie (which is a remake for younger people of the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses), but I think you get the gist of this story. That it might be considered tame in comparison to how some young people actually act today, really says a lot about how times have changed since this movie first surfaced in 1999.

I will admit that as a guilty pleasure this movie works. However, I think that the actors in this film were simply a tad too young for these roles. They are all good and actors like Phillippe and Witherspoon have since proven their chops, but at the end of the day it’s hard for me to see Cruel Intentions as anything other than a young adult romp.

Creative Intentions: Finding A Visual Style

This featurette isn’t as insightful so much as it illuminates things about the world the characters inhabit. For instance, when I was watching this movie I didn’t really feel that it had a period vibe, but I did feel that it looked different. It wasn’t one of those ultra clean, disposable teen films that seem to get churned out in droves. This section basically points out why this movie does stand out from its contemporaries. While this piece isn’t long it does get the job done in terms of explaining to us what we are seeing in the scenes with the characters.

Deleted Scenes

One can watch these deleted scenes with or without the commentary track. I chose to watch it without the commentary track but that was because I didn’t feel that it was necessary. These were interesting to screen but I don’t think they opened up the film that much more. Afterall, this movie is pretty straight forward and it seems that enough subplots (and other extraneous material) made it into the film. However, as I keep saying, if you are a fan of this movie you should do yourself a favor and check these things out. The Look

1.85:1 Aspect Ratio - 1080p HD. If nothing else, Blu-ray has made this release really stand out in terms of the quality of its picture. In every frame it seems like great care has been taken to get the most out of each image. This plays well into the story because these characters (for the most part) try and present themselves as squeaky clean. The fact that the next generation format easily plays into that both with its look and the film’s style, is clearly no small feat. In fact, I think that if one wanted to, they could show people this disc to showcase how Blu-ray handles fare that isn’t of the explosive, violent or comic book variety. The Sound

English PCM 5.1 uncompressed. English and French Dolby Digital 5.1.. Okay, the audio didn’t really grab me that much. Truthfully, I think that it was this area that made me wonder why they felt the need to put out this movie in this format? The sound isn’t bad and things did play fine, I just wish that I felt more drawn into the movie. I never got the impression that the audio was firing on all cylinders, and at the same time you can’t fault the film because I don’t know that it’s really supposed to that. Decide for yourself. The Packaging

Witherspoon, Phillippe and Gellar are shown on the front cover of this Blu-ray release indicating a threesome of sorts. The back of this cover shows off some more pictures from this movie, a description of what Cruel Intentions is about, a Special Features listing and technical specs. I remember when this movie first came out theatrically. I was at a point in my film going life that I really had no interest in seeing it. Why did I care about these characters? How could I relate to who these people were? So I let it pass me by and then I saw it on DVD at one point. Now on Blu-ray disc this is my second viewing. I wish that I could say that I loved this film now but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. I will venture that over time Cruel Intentions has really grown on me a great deal. I think I have just reached a point where this movie is enjoyable because it is so familiar. Why they felt the need to put it out in the next generation format is anybody’s guess, but I am certainly not going to pan this film because I find some of it hard to take. Overall, when you look at the cast on hand here, this is the kind of film that would be very hard (and expensive) to put on the big screen today.

Should you just be starting your Blu-ray collection and you’re already a fan of this film, you should add Cruel Intentions to your collection. If you find that you were only lukewarm to this movie, then I suggest staying away from it.