Blu-ray Review: Independence Day

THE MOVIE: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

In what is rapidly becoming a Will Smith movie festival comes the Blu-Ray release of the blockbuster film, Independence Day. I am sure that all movie fans are familiar with this film released in theaters in 1996. Briefly, after watching us for years and probing our weaknesses, a race of ravenous aliens travel to earth to exterminate us and strip the Earth of all its natural resources. They begin to position massive spacecraft over the Earth’s major cities in a countdown to their attack. Earth’s defenses are ineffective against the attackers due to their shielding which neutralizes our weapons. To the rescue comes Will Smith’s character, an Air Force fighter pilot, and Jeff Goldblum’s character who works at New York City cable company who detects a code in embedded in the aliens’ signal and devises a way to plant a virus in the alien mothership’s computer system which will drop their shielding making their ships vulnerable to attack. How does it all turn out? Well, I don’t want to spoil the ending for you but let’s just say there can be a sequel. If you like some hokey sci-fi with plenty of humor, explosions, special effects and even more explosions, this is the film for you. Highly recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

Independence Day is presented on a BD 50 disc in its original aspect ratio of 2:35:1 and is encoded with AVC. Independence Day was also released by 20th Century Fox on D-Theater and the print used for this encode looks identical to the one used for the D-Theater release and appears to be in immaculate condition. On the plus side, this film boasts bright and well saturated colors which appear to be very accurate with the exception of the some skin tones which appear a tad on the red side. Black levels are deep and stable resulting in a nice three dimensional image. On the downside, this encode is plagued by the same softness to the image that plagued the otherwise fine release on D-Theater. Given that two different encodes from the same master yield similar results, I can only conclude that the slight softness is how the film was shot and is not the fault of the encode. However, this film simply lacks the uber sharpness of I, Robot or I am Legend. However, this is a fine looking encode in its own right and will please most fans of this film.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

As seems to be the case will all Fox releases, the audio on this release is DTS HD Master Audio, a lossless audio codec. The audio on this release is excellent although not quite up to the level of the best encodes in either of the high def optical formats. The dialogue is crisp and clear and well presented in the mix. The sound is full, open and smooth with very good bass response. Explosions and gun shots are well rendered and convincing although the explosions don’t have the rattle the room effect present on the previously reviewed I, Robot which really excelled in bass response. The overall sound field is immersive but lacking the fine acoustical details present in I, Robot and the very best encodes. The sound just does not change all that much from room to room, that is, the different room acoustics are not captured as well as they could have, although they sound very good. The sound mix here is very good and very pleasing, just not up to the level of a reference encode.

IN CONCLUSION

While not a reference disc in terms of audio or video, this is nonetheless a strong release from the folks at 20th Century Fox and will no doubt please the many fans of this film. Highly recommended.

For more high-def news and views, please click: TVPredictions.com