HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

The 6th Day

Blu Ray Title: The 6th Day Rated: PG-13 Screen format: 2.40:1, 1080P High Definition Studio: Sony First theatrical release: 17 November 2000 Previously released on DVD/BluRay: Multiple DVD releases including special edition on January 22, 2002 Director: Roger Spottiswoode Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Rapaport, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rooker, Sarah Wynter and Robert Duval Sound Formats: English, French and Portuguese Dolby True HD 5.1, Spanish & thai Dolby Digital 5.1 Length: 123 Minutes Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Korean, Thai

Plot: 2.5/5
Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger) is a hybrid helicopter/jet pilot for an extreme skiing company. When one of his high profile customers is murdered over his involvement with a cloning operation, Adam is dragged into the cover-up of the deaths of the client, Michael Drucker (Goldwin), and Adam’s partner, Hank (Rapaport). While Drucker is restored to a waiting clone ‘blank’ without too much trouble, the cloners don’t realize that Hank and Adam had secretly swapped jobs before taking Drucker up the mountain, and they mistakenly make a clone of Adam (who is still alive and unaware of any of this).

With real Adam and fake Adam both alive there is huge risk to Drucker, who enlists the aid of three bumbling hit men to try to clean it all up. What they didn’t count on is that two Adams are smarter than one, and while clones might not have rights, they surely have feelings and brains and a will to live. Adam’s only hope is to go over Drucker’s head and sneak into the headquarters of Replacement Technologies the company that has caused all of this, and ultimately confront the engineer responsible, Dr. Griffin Weir (Duvall).

It’s hard to nail down just what doesn’t quite work here. Despite their big budgets some Schwarzenegger movies never really resonated with audiences as much as his hits did, and while you can’t fault the cast or the production values that went into The 6th Day, it clearly isn’t Arnold’s best. While the computer graphics seem a bit dated today, for 2000 they were pretty top of the line, and the Sci-Fi hooks are inserted perfectly, with shoutouts to big names of the genre (Gibson) and religion (Adam) peppered in to great flavor. Even the story, while a bit derivative of just about every other story about cloning, has enough turns to keep interest, but in the end it just never reached the highs that so many other of Arnold's blockbusters hit.

Sound Quality: 4/5

The sound experience of The 6th Day pretty much parallels the experience of the film for me. There is certainly a heavy duty quality there underlying everything but I just never really found myself enthused by the content itself. Musically, the score is orchestral with heavy use of vibrant electronic tones, alternately using bass, strings, and a solo piano as lead instruments. Composer Trevor Rabin came up with interesting sounds and memorable themes that echo Vangelis’ work in Blade Runner, but I found that they just don’t mesh well for an action film. As for the surround effects, these were very good and the True HD track (in multiple languages!) helps to ensure that they are as crisp as they can possibly be represented. Weapons fire from the miniature rail guns crisscrosses the room nicely as does the rotating blades of the whispercrafts that Adam and Hank pilot. I didn’t particularly note heavy reliance on the Bass end, tho it was handled quite well for the score there weren’t as many thumps and bumps as one might expect outside of the signature car chase early in the film and in the inevitable mayhem that occurs at Replacement Tech near the end.

Visual Quality: 4/5

Visually, The 6th Day manages to be sharp and clean without being a truly beautiful film. While further comparisons to Blade Runner are perhaps not fair, that film managed to take the use of darkness and light to high artistic greatness while The 6th Day manages to just make everything seem dark for convenience more than any other reason. I never noted any edge enhancement or other digital artifacts and as noted the print was either very clean or had been cleaned up nicely in post. Perhaps my main complaint about so many HD films once again surfaces here, in that while the vast majority is very sharp and clean, facial details are almost always given short treatment. Given that Arnold is in a bunch of scenes acting with himself, I suppose that we can cut him a bit of a break on that, especially since those were done quite seamlessly.

Extra Features: 5+/5
The number of extra features on this disk is simply off the hook for a non special edition (tho to be fair many originated on the Special Edition DVD). As noted above there are three separate Dolby True HD tracks and ten (TEN!!!) subtitle tracks before we even get to the real features. To start off we have a typical behind the scenes featurette, but this one is over 40 minutes long and produced by Showtime, and is titled “The Future is coming”. Next, if, like me, you happen to be a special effects junky then this disk is as good as a whole issue of Cinefex dedicated to this film, as there are 9 featurettes which average about 10 minutes long each, that cover each of the major effect sequences, some of which are not so obvious. Next up is 2 extended comparisons of the storyboards to the actual filmed sequences and several CGI animatics which focus on the flight of the whispercrafts. Then there is a fact infomercial and .TV spot for for the fake “Repet” company. Topping it all off, if you happen to be one of the lucky few who have D-Box motion control seating in your theater this disk supports it, and there’s even one more featurette which somehow escaped me when I went through them titled “On the 6th day”. I suppose one could whine that there is no director’s commentary (and none by Arnold either) or theatrical trailer, but that seems to be pushing it, especially since there IS BDLive technology on this disk which allows you to get to the Sony Website and download SD and HD trailers from other current releases. And, even better, you don’t have to sign up for anything to do so, unlike the horrible U-Control on HD DVD which I hated!

Overall: 3.5/5 (not an average)
Sadly I just never bought in to this film in a big way but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate all the other trimmings that went into making this a pretty decent disk release. Especially as a 3D effects nut, I really dug into the extras that were enclosed and I also thought the ideas behind the film and the philosophical questions that it raised were definitely worthy of discussion and further exploration.

[PG]110182105[/PG]

Re: HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

Let it be said that no Blu-ray should get a 5 star rating on bonus features if a) the original theatrical trailer isn't included and b) any extras from the SD version are dropped (in this case, the trailer and an isolated music score with commentary from Trevor Rabin). Also, can you clarify what you mean by "Perhaps my main complaint about so many HD films once again surfaces here, in that while the vast majority is very sharp and clean, facial details are almost always given short treatment"? I thought one of the wow factors for HD, and Blu-ray in particular, was how you could see every pore and skin imperfection on actors' faces now.

Re: HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

That's true, but you cant blame the format, rather its the film itself. The simple fact is that directors and cinematographers often use tricks in addition to makeup that prevents you from getting that effect. One classic is intentionally soft lenswork, others include actually putting gels like vaseline over the lens! It's very jarring when you swap back and forth from super sharp wide shots to a closeup and you realize that you arent seeing as much detail in the closer shot. In cases like this HD is able to resolve more detail than is actually present in the source material!

I'm not a stickler for having the trailers but I agree with you this one should be available at least via BD Live if not on the disk. As far as calling this a 5 or not because it loses some of the features available on previous versions you have to understand that A. sometimes those features are licensed only for the original release and it may be impossible to get them again (shouldnt be the case with a trailer, I know) and B. that previous version was marketed as a special edition, this one is not, and yet we get most of those features 'for free', which is why it's definitely a high 5 in my book.

Re: HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

Yep. Not much you can do about that. At least they're not trying to artificially manipulate the director's intention. You're seeing the director's intention, which in this case was probably not to make Arnie look as long in the tooth as he is.

As for my intention, I have no desire to pick up such marginal titles on BD or any other format. Life is too short!

Re: HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

You're partially incorrect there--THE 6TH DAY was released on a standard release DVD, then, about a year later, re-released as a Special Edition. On both editions, the isolated score w/commentary and original trailer were present.

Re: HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

hmmm, interesting =) Will look into that but I think it is likely to stand because of point A.

Re: HTF Blu Ray Review: The 6th Day

I'm certainly no stranger to agreeing to disagree!