I was never really a fan of The Rock. I thought he did a fine job when he hosted SNL, but other than that, I could care less. That is until I saw this movie – The Rundown. Holy crap this movie is funny. Having never heard of this movie before, I was surprised. It has some Solid acting and fine cinematography … for an action film  

The Rock teams with Sean Michael Scott, Rosario Dawson (her awesome body) and …Christopher Walken. Yes, Christopher Walken in this adventure oriented romp. Rock plays a bounty hunter who is sent to Brazil to track the son of his wealthy employer. From the opening fight to the end of the movie, the adventure, fights, dialogue are engaging. The working title was Helldorado (it is seen in the extra features) and I am glad they did not keep that serious sounding title because this movie does not take itself seriously at all. In the end, The Rock shines as an action star.

Picture quality (PQ) in this flick is not the greatest. Update: What I mean is, the picture is granier than most HD DVDs. It looks good, especially the scenic shots in Brazil, but its just not the greatest HD picture I have seen; its not the crisp picture I have come to expect from the format. to compare another action film, Smokin’ Aces looks better. Regardless, its an action movie and was shot in a very cool way. there are some Tarantinoish/Matrixy fight shots and quick movement shots that are crisp and very exciting – especially the Spinning Flying Monkey Ju Jitsu scene. Ultimately, It is a movie that translates well to HD, and would look probably  pretty crappy on an SD DVD.

Audio quality (AQ) wise, this movie scores. The highlight being a scene in an underground ancient burial structure. With its brick walls, and creeky support poles sounding awesome and in 5.1 the AQ really adds to the environment. It was very reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. During the fight/action scenes the audio is awesome. The AQ in the rest of the movie is clear and sharp even with just a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Unlike Transformers I don’t think the audio was important enough to add a TrueHD track.

The extra features are pathetic. This kind of movie would have been perfect for a U-control menu which could show the filming of the fight scenes with PiP and the GPS feature as used in Miami Vice. I was surprised not to see it here. There is, however, a horrible featurette about The Rock’s relationship with some baboons. The features with in typical 4:3 SD … whatever.

If you haven’t seen it, get it in HD, I don’t think it would be as good in SD.

ILHDDVD Rating: 3/5 (A fun movie that misses with the video quality)
Video/Image: 3/5 (Ok)
Audio: 4/5 (awesome for the genre)
Recommended

Did you see this HD DVD? Rankit: (4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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Not many HD DVDs are planned for release until the end of the month with American Gangster as the big release on Feb. 19 and Beowulf a week later. American Gangster and Beowulf are good titles, but HD DVD needs to get is shizzle together and release some more and bigger titles! Click the title to pre-order from Amazon and get your title the day of the release:

Week of Feb. 5:

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]
Naked Beneath the Water [HD DVD]

Week of Feb. 12:

The Amateurs
Girls Gone Wild: Baby Bash Live & Uncensored [HD DVD]

Week of Feb. 19:

American Gangster (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]
Galaxina [HD DVD]
The Invasion (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]

Week of Feb. 26,

Beowulf (Director’s Cut) [HD DVD]
The Brave One (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]
Cecilia & Bryn at Glyndebourne: Arias & Duets [HD DVD] A must have!
Dragon Tiger Gate [HD DVD]
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Resurrection [HD DVD]
Rain in the Mountains [HD DVD]

This is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. The movie is presented in vector animation, which is very cool. Luckily the use of graphics did not detract from the film but added to its weirdness, if you can even figure out what its about and why it occurs in Anaheim. The script is great, with Neo, Woody Harrelson and that one chick from some slacker movies.

How does this play in HD DVD? Very well, but nothing special. Animation is a weird thing in HD, especially CGI. I never saw this in SD, but I think it would look okay – obviously not HD quality, but good. Nothing really special or “wowie” about the video quality though.

The audio is also middle of the road. There is a nice crisp environment, but like the video … nothing “wowie” about it.

Ultimately, this is a fun and weird movie to watch and great on a big TV. The extra features are informative, but forgettable.

ILHDDVD Rating: 3/5 (Lack of wowie)
Video/Image: 3/5 (Ok)
Audio: 3/5 (Ok)
Recommended

Did you see this HD DVD? Rankit: (4 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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Last week I put up my review of A Clockwork Orange – one of the most appropriately violent movies I had ever seen. It is mere coincidence then that the second most appropriately violent movie, Smokin’ Aces, gets its review now. Written and Directed by Joe Carnahan, Smokin’ Aces is the complicated story of a second-rate magician with a large bounty apparently on his head for selling out his crime lord friends to the FBI. The cast is great, Jeremy Piven, Andy Garcia and the brutally sexy Alicia Keys – who by the way has some great legs (I did not know this). It is an entertaining movie you will think in some respects was directed by Quenten Tarantino – but wasn’t. It falls just short of Resservoir Dogs and Fight club in terms of script and direction, but fits perfectly next to those movies on your shelf, if organized by Genre and then quality. Maybe you go alpha, I don’t know, my system is kind of random … like this post.

As for the HD quality – It looks like this film was made for an HD picture. The shots were great and when necessary, large in scope. Jeremy Piven’s character gets put through the wringer in this movie and the close-ups of his face truly revealed how stressed this character was. Adding to the effect was the detail that HD allows. I cannot see this deatil in an SD format. Similarly, Alicia Keys’ thighs looked really good in HD – rawr. Ultimately, Being a bloodbath, this movie needed the details that a high resolution picture allows. At certain times my wife had to turn her head away from the carnage. I have never seen her do that before, and I doubt an SD picture would have the same effect. Ultimately, this was one of the best non-effects based HD DVDs I think I have ever seen. That said, as I watch more and more HD DVD, I find myself looking for effects based movies. Regardless, this picture is great – thank goodness its a Universal HD DVD.

As for the audio: spot on as our friends across the pond would say. Seriously spot on. Crime dramas can be very effectively mastered in HD audio, like Smokin’ Aces and Miami Vice. The audio mix added to the environment and was very well mastered.

Amazingly, this HD DVD had a very cool menu animation and employed U-Control. U-Control is Universal’s use of HDi to display extra film information in a Picture-in-Picture format – a feature that is lacking on Pre-Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players. So far the implementation has been spotty. I can, however, attest that the U-Control feature in this HD DVD is awesome, providing information otherwise found by using IMDB and the ‘internets’. After experiencing this U-control HD DVD, I re-watched Miami Vice paying special attention to the U-Control features. It really is a new movie experience; one exclusive to HD DVD.

What keeps this out of my 5 favorites, is the overall movie expereience. The point of the 5 favorites is to suggest the first 5 movies a newbie should buy and 5 movies that you can use to show off HD DVD’s features. I am secure with my current list. Regardless of how awesome the HD DVD features were, I still think I would choose the 5 I have listed to show off the format. That said, I am bumping Apollo 13 from the honorable mention list and adding this flick. Enjoy.

ILHDDVD Rating: 4/5 (Good HD DVD + Cool extras (lack of wow) = 4; Honorable Mention)
Video/Image: 5/5 (One of the best looking non-effects based HD DVDs)
Audio: 4/5 (WTYM)
 recommended

Honorable Mention

Did you see this HD DVD? Rankit: (4 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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Yes, Yes and Yes. This is a great movie to watch in HD. Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 is a great movie, probably one of his best known movies as well.

Visually, HD DVD is an awesome format for this picture. There is significant CGI work, but unlike some movies it is very well done here. There is not much more to say than that this movie looks great in HD.

Audio is the same … sounds awesome in HD. The rockets, explosions, all awesome and perfectly mixed. There is really not much more to say about this, but that this movie is great in HD and highly recommended. As good as it is, It jsut misses the wow factor, that is I would not use this movie to show friends how awesome the HD format is. Not that there is anything wrong, but that the movies on my favorite 5 movies are so much better to demonstrate the format. So this will now be added to the Honorable Mention list.

LHDDVD Rating: 4/5 (Added to Honorable Mention)
Video/Image: 4/5 (Awesome)
Audio: 4/5 (Awesome)
Recommended

Did you see this HD DVD? Rankit: (4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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