Daylight

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Disaster	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1996	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	109:43 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies Production Notes
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (77:19)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie	Cast & Crew
Region	2,4	Director	Rob Cohen
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Sylvester Stallone Amy Brenneman Viggo Mortensen Dan Hedaya Jay O. Sanders Karen Young Claire Bloom Barry Newman Stan Shaw
Case	Transparent Amaray	Starring
RRP	$34.95	Music	Randy Edelman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) French (Dolby Digital 5.1) Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1 Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	English French Arabic	Smoking	No

Plot Synopsis

Daylight is the second Universal release that I have reviewed, and it falls into the same genre as Twister before it, namely the disaster genre. Daylight is set under the Hudson River in New York. An explosion in the tunnel has trapped a number of people underground, with little hope of survival, until Kit Latura (Sylvester Stallone) comes to their rescue.

Make no bones about it, this is a great action flick. Where it falls down is in the script department, with plain annoying one-dimensional characters and dialogue bordering on the ridiculous at times. Fortunately, it is mostly action, and little dialogue, so it remains quite enjoyable overall.

Transfer Quality

Video

This is another sensational transfer, and is of reference quality.

The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear throughout. Shadow detail was excellent, and there was no low level noise.

The colours were clear and well saturated at all times.

There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Film-to-video artefacts were essentially absent. Film artefacts were non-existent.

This disc is an RSDL disc. The layer change takes place at 77:19, between Chapters 30 and 31. This layer change is moderately disruptive, but not too bad.

Subtitles are selectable on the fly, unlike the situation with Twister, which required you to return to the main menu to select subtitles.

Audio

This is a reference-quality soundtrack, and is one of the better 5.1 mixes that I have heard.

There are four audio tracks on this DVD - English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and Italian Dolby Digital 5.1. You cannot select the audio tracks on the fly and must instead return to the main menu to change audio options. Unlike Twister, however, all audio tracks and all subtitles are available regardless of which zone the DVD player is set to.

Dialogue was reasonably clear and easy to understand, though I felt overall that the level of the dialogue could have been lifted a notch to make it more understandable.

There were no audio sync problems.

The score by Randy Edelman is slightly above standard disaster movie fare, and adds to the ambience of the movie nicely without being exceptional.

The surround channels were used aggressively and frequently during the special effects sequences, creating an excellent enveloping soundfield. Sound placement was very precise throughout the entire soundfield and split surrounds were used frequently to more precisely place sounds.

The .1 channel received lots of signal from the soundtrack, being nearly continuously in use during the special effect sequences. It was nicely integrated into the overall soundtrack.

Extras

Only a limited number of extras are present on this disc.

What's Missing / What's Extra

The Region 1 version of this disc is a Special Edition, and hence we miss out on a lot of extras; Making Of Featurette, Director's Audio Commentary Track, a second Theatrical Trailer, another Featurette, Music Video, and a Photo Gallery.

Theatrical Trailer

This is presented at an aspect ratio of 1:78:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.1 surround-encoded sound. The trailer is fairly ordinary in terms of selling the movie, but on the other hand, it is very aggressive in the use of surrounds by the audio.

Cast & Crew Biographies

These are excellently presented, with a photo of each cast member and the director leading to detailed biographies and filmographies. Navigation is somewhat counterintuitive with the cursor highlight being very unclear, but this is not a major problem.

Production Notes

These are quite detailed and informative and are well worth the read.

Summary

Daylight is a near reference quality disc. The movie is passable disaster movie fare with spectacular action shots and less-than-spectacular acting.

The video quality is excellent and is of reference quality.

The audio quality is superb, with the only minor complaint being that the dialogue could have been slightly higher in level.

The extras are limited, but what is there is superbly presented, if not easy to navigate.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Pioneer DV-505, using S-Video output
Display	Loewe Art-95 95cm direct view CRT in 16:9 mode, via the S-Video input. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder	Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital AddOn Decoder, used as a standalone processor. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Amplification	2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer
Speakers	Philips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer