Alien Lockdown (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Menu Animation Trailer-Larva, Clive Barker's The Plague, The Woods, The Alibi, Trailer-16 Blocks
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	88:01
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Tim Cox
Studio Distributor	SONY Pictures Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	James Marshall Michelle Goh John Savage Martin Kove Stanislav Dimitrov Nathan Perez T.M. Van Ostrand Atanas Srebrev David Kallaway
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	John Dickson

    In a secret underground government laboratory, a mad scientist (John Savage) uses an alien rock to combine 100 different strands of predator DNA to make a monster that then gets loose and kills most of the lab personnel. A military team lead by the assassin Talon (Michelle Goh) is sent in by a high ranking official (Martin Kove) to kill the beast and "clean up" anything left behind.

    Genre fans have seen this plot a hundred times before, so surprises are few and far between. Take one part Alien, one part Predator and a smattering of Stargate crossed with Doom and you get 90 minutes of dull, cheap looking sci-fi bursting with every cliché known to man. Director Tim Cox is unable to provide us with anything resembling passable action or solid atmosphere and the CGI effects border on Early Nintendo quality. As for our cast, they appear as uninterested as the production crew. Michelle Goh, John Savage and Martin Kove sleepwalk through their roles with wooden efficiency. Overall, Alien Lockdown is a mess and devoid of any redeeming qualities.

Video

    Alien Lockdown is presented Full Frame in approximately the ratio of 1:33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced for widescreen display devices.

    Sharpness levels were fairly strong, and I didn't notice any aliasing, edge enhancement or halo effects.

    Shadow detail was reasonable except in a few areas where the transfer was too dark to see an image clearly. Low Level Noise was thankfully absent, however there was slight grain found throughout the transfer, but nothing distracting.

    Colours were given a green hue, but remained natural and consistent.

    There were very few film or video artefacts found in the transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Alien Lockdown has been given a solitary English 2.0 Dolby Digital surround track.

    Dialogue is mostly clear, but does drop out on occasion with what appears to be post ADR tampering. This also accounts for Audio Sync anomalies scattered throughout the transfer.

    The film's Music is standard direct to DVD orchestral rumblings, but thankfully not overly intrusive or overbearing.

    Surround Channel Usage is minimal at best. There is ambient noise located in the rear channels, but directional effects are thunderous in their absence.

    The Subwoofer is weak and required stronger bass and reverberation levels to support the few action sequences found in the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu Animation

Trailers

    The R4 version is full frame.

    The R1 version is anamorphic widescreen presented in 1:77:1.

    R1 is the winner for the 16x9 presentation.

   Alien Lockdown is a mess of a film and is a textbook example of what is wrong with a lot of direct to DVD productions. The transfer found on the disc is sub-par with zero extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall