I bought this a couple weeks back but just had the chance to watch it last night. Having not seen it in many years I was surprised to find that it was cheesier than I remembered it, with some corney dialog and lots of overacting. Of course, Costners' variable, almost-English accent was just as butt-puckeringly awful as I remembered it!
The actual picture is quite soft, which surprised me, as the film isn't really that old. I don't know if it's the transfer or if the DVD was made off of a bad print. It's not terrible, but fuzzy enough to be distracting at times. Likewise the sound is nothing to write home about, not a lot of slam, but the occasional scene has some slam (eg where Hazim sets off some primitive black powder bombs). The sound is pretty clean, but doesn't give the surrounds much to do.
The new edition has some deleted footage added back in, and I'd say this didn't add anything to the movie at all. As a matter of fact, most of the stuff was better off deleted.
Overall the disc wasn't too bad a deal, and since it was previously only available as a flipper, it was beautiful being able to watch it thru without interuption. Mostly I was vaguely dissappointed that it wasn't as good a film as I'd remembered, but I think the new version is a keeper.
