The Code

Movie: 3.5 out of 5
Morgan Freeman, Antonio Banderas, Rhada Mitchell, and Robert Forster star in director Mimi Leder's first feature since 2000's Paying It Forward. Freeman plays Keith Ripley, a veteran art thief who needs to steal two Faberge eggs, thought to have been lost forever, to pay his former partner's debt to the Russian mob. Ripley hires Gaby (Banderas) as his new partner, who falls in love with Ripley's goddaughter, Alexandra (Mitchell). Forster is the veteran detective who has been chasing Ripley for most of his police career.

Freeman, Banderas, and Forster are in top form in this entertaining but forgettable direct-to-video thriller. Mitchell's performance is weak, her line delivery sounding like something straight out of acting school. Although the film is set in New York City, much of it was actually shot in Bulgaria, and unfortunately, those scenes do not resemble the Big Apple, as they look too European. To give the filmmakers credit, though, the scenes that take place in Brighton Beach and Coney Island (locations very tough to fake) were shot on location, and it is those scenes that remind you of the film's setting.

The real highlight, though, is Atli Ovarsson's catchy film score, as I found myself humming the main theme long after the film was over.

Video: 3 out of 5
First Look Studios brings The Code to DVD in an acceptable 2.35:1 aspect ratio anamorphic widescreen transfer. The gritty, somewhat muted cinematography by Julio Macat is well replicated, with minimal noise and compression artifacts.

Audio: 2.5 out of 5
The Dolby Digital 5.1 track, encoded at a paltry 320 kbps (that is not a typo), often sounds compressed. Dialogue, although intelligible and centered, is often muffled. Music and effects fare much better, with occasional use of the surrounds during the few action sequences. Dialogue fares much better on the Dolby 2.0 track, encoded at 192 kbps.

Special Features: 2.5 out of 5
Although retail and rental versions of this film on DVD have no special features besides trailers, First Look Studios has provided Best Buy stores with an exclusive edition using a new technology called TellX, similar in theory to Universal's U-verse interactive features on its Blu-ray titles. During the movie, small icons will appear on the screen, indicating that a video clip, map, or text screen related to the scene is available to view. Pressing the Menu button on your remote control will then bring up the TellX interactive menu, and you can then navigate to the related video clip, map, or text screen. When you are finished viewing the special feature, you must then navigate to the play button on the TellX menu to continue the film from where you left off.

The video clips are snipets of behind the scenes footage hosted by either director of photography Julio Macat or costume designer Ane Crabtree. The clips are also windowboxed in the center of the screen. Maps are screen captures from Microsoft Virtual Earth indicating either where the scene was filmed, takes place, or both. One nice thing the producers of the DVD did was allow you to access the video clips and text screens individually from the TellX menu without having to select them while watching the film.

Purchasers of this DVD have a chance at winning an iPod by playing the Cracking The Code game by finding clues during the movie to open the safe with a combination. Successful viewers are then directed to a website where they can enter their name, address, and the serial number from the DVD insert. Winners will then be contacted at a later date.

TellX worked flawlessly on both my Playstation 3 and Pioneer DV-578A DVD player. However, I found TellX to be not all that ground-breaking, basically an enhanced or more menu-driven version of branching features we have seen on DVDs of 24 and X-Men. Add in the additional navigation and DVD's slower access time, I was not all that excited by TellX.

Overall: 3 out of 5
The Code is an entertaining, but ultimately forgettable thriller. The DVD has some interesting features, but to access them was a bit too gimmicky and slow.