Blu-ray Movie Reviews

This action thriller may deepen the paranoid fever dreams of those who imagine that the feds are watching, listening-in on, and recording every aspect of their routine lives. But for those of us who know better, it's nevertheless an entertaining action thriller that moves along at a heady pace and is populated by a superb cast.

Big Brother is watching at every turn here as evil government operatives (are there any other kind in the movies?) spin their devious plots to enslave us all. Will Smith's everyman lawyer becomes ensnared in the web when he unknowingly receives a disc that contains a recording of a political murder. In the process the perpetrators strip him of everything while they simultaneously track him down.

View this disc casually and you might not be overly impressed by its high definition credentials. But hang around a while, particularly on a system with a big-screen, and its quality becomes much more impressive. Nothing about it ever takes you out of the movie, either, which is the first requirement of a good presentation. It's also vastly superior to my DVD copy of the same film with its non-enhanced, letterbox video.

While there is an uncompressed audio track on this disc, I auditioned the DD audio. It's a good mix, perhaps a little aggressive and bright in a way common to films from producer Jerry Bruckheimer. But it pushes all the right buttons to keep the film moving and the viewer engaged.

(Picture: 8.5 (out of 10), Sound: 8.0, Film: 8.0)