Blu-ray Disc/DVD REVIEW |
DVD Release Date: January 30, 2007 Blu-ray Release Date: February 13, 2007 Film Rating:  / Starring: John Cena (John Triton), Robert Patrick (Rome), Kelly Carlson (Kate Triton), Anthony Ray Parker (Morgan), Abigail Bianca (Angela) Written by: Michell Gallagher & Alan B. McElroy Directed by: John Bonito John Cena is John Triton, a discharged marine from the war in Iraq, trying to find his place in American society. Leaving the life of a marine is difficult for him as he proves his strength and judgement is too harsh towards “everyday” people. Unsure about his life, John takes the advice of a co-worker; to spend time with the one thing he is sure about – his wife. But the quiet vacation turns ugly after an unintentional run-in with a group of jewel thieves. His wife is kidnapped and his John is almost killed, but that doesn’t stop him from using his skills to hunt them down on foot until she is safe in his arms again. The Marine is not a great film by any means. It’s basic story line is highly influenced by many other films of the genre and one can’t help to think a bit about Rambo, Predator and the obvious Terminator 2 reference. Yet despite its silly dialogue, goofy characters, and explosion after explosion, The Marine is relatively quick and entertaining 90 minutes. The Marine is available on both Blu-ray and DVD formats. Both releases are virtually identical. The DVD includes both Rated and Unrated versions while the Blu-ray disc features the Unrated version only and a superior audio/video experience.  VIDEO QUALITY: 3.5/5  The DVD exhibits good resolution for the format but falls behind well-transferred high profile titles. The image has a considerable amount of film grain and a bit of softness that prevents this DVD from looking excellent. DVD never seems to translate film grain well. The Blu-ray disc on the other hand makes all that appears wrong on the DVD right – the Super 35 film grain is very acceptable and feels part of the film-going experience. Resolution improves considerably in high definition and gone is the artificial edge outlining that naturally plagues the DVD technology. Both versions exhibit good depth, image contrast, and colour fidelity (the latter lacking somewhat more than the rest); as expected, the Blu-ray disc, encoded with MPEG-2 @ 21MBPS takes the image well beyond the limits of DVD for a much more pleasing experience. Edge enhancement isn’t noticeable but minor compression artefacts exist on the DVD. The BD is not affected by either. The aspect ratio is correct for both formats at 1.85:1. *Both DVD and Blu-ray disc share the same score because I feel that when ranked against other titles on the same format, both fall in the same rating. AUDIO QUALITY: 4/5 The Blu-ray disc is the preferred experience offering lossless DTS Master Audio. Even though the 1.5MBPS core is only accessible at this time, this sound is still somewhat superior to the DVD’s Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding. From bass definition to midrange clarity, the accessible DTS lossy encode offers more image depth and is quite noticeable in music. High frequency reproduction is quite similar between both encodes, but at least appreciate that Fox has future proofed their customers offering lossless audio on all BD titles since their first release. Referring to the sound design, The Marine has a rather large soundstage and guarantees almost unlimited large explosions throughout. Surrounds and LFE are actively used to create an immersive experience but at times the soundtrack does go quiet or seems like it could have more potential. Dialogue is nicely integrated in the mix and never sounds distorted. TACTILE FUN!! / TACTILE TRANSDUCER ON/OFF?: ON SPECIAL FEATURES: 2/5 As mentioned earlier, both disc formats feature almost identical features – I think it’s a first for Fox because their BD catalogue has been relatively featureless up to this point. But by this point many of you probably already know I’m more of a “movie guy” rather than one who demands loads of features. I say put the quality in the film first. Fox does just that. What you won’t find on the BD is the theatrical version of the film. Both editions include the widescreen unrated cut. What makes the versions different and by how much I’m not sure, but based on the overuse of “unrated” it probably isn’t much. Features are SD only (except the theatrical trailer on BD) and apply to both formats:
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