Like most human beings on the face of the earth, I never got a chance to see Gattaca, despite its strong reputation. It doesn’t even fall under the category of cult classic – initial reviews were quite positive and to this day Gattaca enjoys strong word-of-mouth despite the fact that I, nor you have ever met anyone who has actually seen the goddamn thing, much like the film Frequency which I, nor you, have bothered to see, either. Now comes the less-than-ballyhooed special edition of Gattaca, but does it live up to its quiet, reserved reputation? Well, yes and no. Probably mostly no. But that’s due to my personal disinterest in Ethan Hawke.

It’s the year fifteen-bajillion, and childbirth has been broken down into an exact science, to the point where generic monkeying is the normal procedure – you want blond hair, blue eyes, a long lifespan and a giant penis? Done, done done aaaaaaaaand done. Vincent Freeman, however, was a seminal crapshoot – doomed to a life of myopia, heart disease and a life of smug distance (Hi, Ethan Hawke!). Vincent dreams of entering space, but thanks to technology (thanks, technology), the government is only concerned with the best and brightest in genetically altered supermen.

Knowing that no matter how much he does he’ll only be faced with constant drug and blood tests to prove his genetic worth, Vincent decides to consult the black market, which hooks Vincent up with Jerome Morrow, a former athlete turned invalid recluse. The process is meticulous, grotesque even. Vincent, nay, Jerome is equipped with authentic bags of the real Jerome’s urine, blood samples, fake fingerprints, skin flakes, hair, even going under the knife in order to grow a few inches taller, just to assume his new identity and get into that rocket ship. Vincent is now, Christ I can’t believe I’m typing it, a de-gene-erate.

Fortunately, Jerome passes the genetic testing with flying colors. Unfortunately, a dead body ends up in the building with Vincent’s shed eyelashes not far away from the corpse. And now with an unhealthy amount of paranoia in his mind and a pulpy Noir detective after him (an out-of-place Alan Arkin, though not as out-of-place as Ernest Borgnine), VincentJerome has to avoid being caught while simultaneously keeping the trust of new love interest Uma Thurman.

Now, Gattaca is a pretty ingenious film for the most part, emerging years before the phrase “stem cells” were on the lips of every crazy person you never wanted to listen to for more than a minute straight. It’s got a brain in its head, and the look of it is rather gorgeous at times. But unfortunately, Gattaca doesn’t particularly stir anything in me, personally. It’s dry, sterile, even. It stars Ethan Hawke. Alan Arkin, an integral part of the second half, just doesn’t work for the tone of the film. And the ending, boy the ending – the ending feels like a studio compromise. But the film is well worth checking out anyway, despite my own reservations, because ideas overthrow my personal biases. And Gattaca is full of ideas. Full of ideas, and Xander Berkley.

Presentation
Gattaca is a handsome film, straddling between throwback sci-fi, noir, steampunk, cyberpunk and all sorts of catch phrases that are just silly and inappropriate. Fortunately, the audio and visual side of the disc – though neither I, nor you have ever seen any previous incarnation of the film, be it on the original barebones disc or the Superbit release. So, coldly going in, I can say the presentation handles the visuals just fine, with appropriate sharpness matched with lovely color. Color is especially important, as Gattaca sometimes amps up the color to a near Argentino-like intensity. Reds, blues and especially greens splash across the screen with intensity. The soundtrack is a rather subdued affair, especially coming out of my own stereo speakers – I couldn’t imagine having need for a 5.1 setup, as the film prefers talking over bombast.

Extras
Fans of Gattaca, even though I, nor you, have ever met them, will probably have a sense of regret when it comes to this special edition of the film – it comes equipped with a ten-minute chunk of inconspicuous workprint-quality deleted scenes that brings more Borgnine and Koteas to the table (though little else) along with a urine-sipping Xander Berkley makes an appearance in the Substance Test Outtake, and a few featurettes: the pure EPK-based Original Featurette and the newly constructed Welcome to Gattaca; a twenty-minute deconstruction of the film featuring new interviews with producers, set designers, Ethan Hawke, Jude Law and even Danny DeVito shows up. It’s less promotional than the Original Featurette, but it doesn’t feel like anything special in regards to the special edition label.

Outside of Welcome to Gattaca, the only other newly produced feature for this release is the thematically attached Do Not Alter?, a documentary about genetic meddling. How does it connect to the film? Well, does the name Gore Vidal do anything for you? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Gore Vidal is in the film. Now you know. And of course it’s fascinating stuff, but does it really belong on the disc? Well, without director Andrew Nicol on board for any of the features, you got to fill the disc up with something, right?

And finally, we’ve got a set of trailers for such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dragon Wars and The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep, which I have not received for review, as of this writing (04/05: never forget).

The Bottom Line
While containing a lot of interesting thoughts packaged in a pleasing visual style, Gattaca leaves me cold – in other words, it has the brains, but where’s the heart?

…I can’t believe I actually wrote that, by the way