Into the Blue (Blu-ray) (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	110:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Stockwell
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Paul Walker Jessica Alba Scott Caan Ashley Scott Josh Brolin James Frain Tyson Beckford Dwayne Adway Javon Frazer Chris Taloa Peter R.V. Bowleg Jr. Clifford McIntosh Adam Collins
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Paul Haslinger

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Linear PCM 48/16 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Hindi	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, clothing labels and surf wear.
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Hmm, let me see. Eye-candy in a tight bikini package: check. Hunky dude with attitude that wears his morals on his sleeve: check. "Drugs are bad" motto: check. 'Extreme action' visage that doesn't deliver, appealing to teen demographic: check. It's sexy-teen-action formula number thirteen-dash-two! You've been fooled by this one before, trust me.

    Jarod (Paul Walker) and Sam (Jessica Alba) are a young, partially clothed couple living on an island in the Bahamas. Keen to start hunting for shipwrecked treasure in nearby coastal waters, Jarod throws in his job in the tourist industry and starts repairing his boat with the view of making it big in the treasure business. His lawyer friend Bryce (Scott Caan) arrives with his new girlfriend, Amanda (Ashley Scott), and the two couples charter a yacht together for a day's snorkelling. While searching for a lost watch, Jarod stumbles on recent wreckage of a plane that appears to have been used for trafficking drugs. It just so happens that the plane wreckage lies alongside artefacts he's found of a sunken ship that may be hundreds of years old. A conundrum surfaces in whether to report the plane wreckage and corpses inside it, which would certainly risk their claim of the potential sunken treasure. Shaking on a pact to determine the significance of the sunken ship first, they arm themselves with metal detectors and map out plans to sieve for further evidence. But, they soon find they lack the equipment and finances to stake a proper claim, and the temptation to borrow merchandise from the drug-laden aircraft weighs on their minds. Money, women, greed and priorities are twisted together, as the foursome get mixed up with unsavoury pirates, drug lords and corrupt cops, all in an effort to gain the claim to the sunken clipper ship.

    Besides being packed with high-definition photography of a perpetually bikini-clad Jessica Alba, the film also sports some impressive underwater camerawork. Although it tries very hard, the film is not particularly suspenseful or terrifying, and the screenwriting is awkward and unimaginative at best. This might be worth a rental if you're looking for a lightweight adventure, otherwise, I'd recommend you give it a wide berth.

Video

    The film is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1, in a native 16x9 frame.

    The image is generally sharp, clear and free of any dire imperfections. The quality of the underwater footage varies a little, perhaps because this footage was captured by a second unit. Darker, shadowy scenes are handled very well in this transfer, and black levels are nice and deep when appropriate.

    The colour scheme is very rich, bright and tropical. Skin tones are realistic. I didn't note any rendering issues or oversaturation.

    MPEG2 compression has been applied with no obvious compression issues to speak of. A few tiny film artefacts appear now and then, but never go beyond inconsequential specs of dust. A minor degree of film grain appears now and then, usually during the darker, aforementioned underwater scenes. These sequences also exhibit strange overlapping frames (akin to video conversion artefacts), that makes the action on screen appear much less smooth (100:18). These artefacts certainly do not befit a 1080p, premium priced transfer.

    English subtitles are provided for the hard of hearing. The text seems to follow the dialogue fairly closely.

This disc is BD-25 formatted.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two English soundtracks available, the default of which is Dolby Digital 5.1. A much nicer PCM 5.1 alternative may be selected manually or on the fly. I sampled the Dolby Digital during a few key scenes, but the PCM was my preferred by far.

    The English dialogue is crisp, clear and easy to discern above effects and score. The ADR is a little obvious at times, but audio sync seems to be reliable.

    Surround channel usage extends from loud passing vehicles to subtle atmospherics. The rear channel usage is tasteful and quite convincing at times, particularly during underwater scenes. Voices are confined to the front centre channel throughout the film.

    Compared to the Dolby Digital default, the PCM audio comes across crisp and deep, with noticeably superior clarity and channel separation in the score and effects in particular. LFE response is also better, with much more depth to be heard in gunfire, explosions and the like. If you're capable of processing the PCM audio, be sure to enable it.

    The subwoofer adds plenty of bottom end to the score and soundtrack music. Various rumbles, explosions, collisions and the like all get appropriate LFE treatment.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    None.

    The video transfer is good.

    The audio transfer includes a nice PCM option.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall