Phenomenon

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1996	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	119 minutes (not 123 per case)	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Jon Turteltaub
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	John Travolta Kyra Sedgwick Forest Whitaker Robert Duvall
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Thomas Newman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?
Subtitles	English French Dutch Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No

    George, however, remains quite a naive and simple man - all he wants is for his friend, Nate Pope (Forest Whitaker) to be happy, and to have his love of Lace Pennamin (Kyra Sedgwick) returned. But, complications ensue with at least some of the townsfolk threatened by the newly intelligent George.

    John Travolta turns in a great performance as George, in a very moving story. Robert Duvall is his usual excellent self as the town doctor. This is an excellent movie.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. I believe in this case that this was an electronically enhanced 16x9 transfer on the basis of the variable quality of the image under stress rather than a real 16x9 transfer.

    The transfer was usually sharp and clear, but at times seemed to lose some definition. Graininess was occasionally a problem. Shadow detail was satisfactory, and there was no low level noise.

    The colour was well saturated throughout.

    No definite MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of moderately large amounts of aliasing at times involving all of the usual suspects. There was also some very unusual-looking horizontal image wobble which occurred from time to time. This did not appear to be telecine wobble, as usually it only involved a portion of the image wobbling horizontally. When it occurred, it was very distracting. Two specific examples of this artefact are at 55:57 - 56:41 (watch the back of the chair) and 76:44 - 76:54 (watch the house). I wonder whether this was some sort of MPEG motion compensation artefact. Film artefacts were rare.

Audio

    Dialogue was usually clear and audible, though some words were a little hard to make out. The dialogue had an artificial, processed quality to it - a lot of the time it was not well integrated into the rest of the soundtrack which was somewhat distracting.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The musical score was by Thomas Newman. It was well suited to the relaxed feel of the movie, and complemented the action superbly. It was not present all that often, but when it was, it fitted nicely.

     The surround channels were not used a great deal, being a dialogue-based movie, but there was quite a deal of ambience placed in the front channels which was very effective indeed.

   The .1 channel did little except for a few select moments, where it was called into action most impressively.

What's Missing / What's Extra

Menu

    The video quality varies from mostly excellent to some poorly transferred sections.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras present are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras	nil
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
4th June 1999