Dick Tracy: Warren Beatty, Madonna Finally Get the High-Def Attention They Deserve
The oft-overlooked comics adaptation “Dick Tracy” (1990) has finally received the home video release it deserves, arriving this week on Blu-ray. Disney and star/director Warren Beatty have been duking it out over legal rights practically ever since it first came out, which kept the film — which was a major blockbuster and won several Oscars — from being as widely circulated or well-remembered as it probably ought to have been. We finally have a transfer that does justice to the cartoony color palette and bizarre prosthetic makeup effects. Who cares if it seems to crib heavily from Tim Burton’s “Batman,” which came out the year before it — even down to the bombastic Danny Elfman’s score? Beatty’s vision of Tracy’s world is surprisingly durable. It’s not every day that you get to watch a movie from the early ’90s that can only be dated by the relative age of its actors. Here’s a glimpse of the new, spruced-up version: Madonna singing Stephen Sondheim’s “Sooner or Later.”
Release Date: December 11, 2012