Entrapment (Blu-ray) (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Adventure	Audio Commentary-Director John Amiel Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	112:49
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jon Amiel
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Sean Connery Catherine Zeta-Jones Ving Rhames Will Patton Maury Chaykin Kevin McNally Terry O'Neill Madhav Sharma David Yip Tim Potter Eric Meyers Aaron Swartz William Marsh
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Christopher Young

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 (6912Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Spanish Danish Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish French Swedish Norwegian	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

    It's the heist movie that has Catherine Zeta-Jones in a tight leather catsuit dancing around lasers. That is certainly how I remembered the movie after its original release, and again after rewatching on blu-ray nearly a decade later.

    Insurance investigator Gin Baker (Catherine Zeta Jones) points the finger at legendary thief Robert "Mac" MacDougal (Sean Connery) after a valuable painting is stolen from a secure office halfway up a skyscraper. Not content with simply accusing Mac of the high-tech heist, Gin convinces her boss, Hector Cruz (Will Patton), to let her go undercover as a fellow cat burgular to catch him red handed. The pair enter a tense business relationship as they plot a series of complex heists and Gin's loyalty is put to the test.

    Entrapment is a stylish heist movie that is deeply rooted in movie-land, where high-tech thieves are romanticised and the laws of common sense give way to elaborate set pieces. The movie holds up well today, years after the pre-millenium paranoia that functions as a sub-plot to drive the movie has become all but forgotten. This is very much popcorn entertainment, but it never pretends to be anything else.

Video

    The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio in 1080P resolution.

    The video looks extremely good, but is not quite perfect. Visually this is a significant bump up on the DVD edition as the enhanced resolution highlights the film's stylish cinematography exceptionally well. The image is generally clear and sharp with a very mild level of film grain visible throughout. A handful of scenes look a little soft compared to the rest of the film, but this appears to be a deliberate decision to shoot in soft focus or through heavy filters. Black levels are excellent and there is plenty of detail in shadows and dark scenes.

    The colours are rich and quite naturally toned. There is excellent colour depth visible throughout, especially during the stylised set pieces of the film, and no noticeable colour banding.

    There are no compression-related artefacts or film artefacts visible in the video. A very minor telecine wobble is present during the credits (particularly noticeable if you bring up the pop up menu as the credits start), but not during the film itself.

    White English subtitles for the hearing impaired are present for the feature. The subtitles appear to be reasonably accurate to the spoken word and well timed, based on the portion I sampled.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    An English lossless DTS-MA 5.1 audio track is present for the film, as well as a French DTS 5.1 (1.5 Mbps) and a Spanish DTS 5.1 (1.5 Mbps) track.

    The audio sounds magnificent. It is crystal clear and well mixed.

    Dialogue is at a good level in the mix and appears to be well synchronised to the video.

    The film features quite good sound design that makes excellent use of the surrounds during the action and heist set-pieces and good use of the surrounds at all other times. The LFE channel makes excellent detailed use of the subwoofer throughout the film for components of the score and the requisite bangs and booms for this type of movie. It isn't quite reference material, nor the first soundtrack you would pull out to show off your system, but it is of a very high standard nonetheless.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There is no top menu on this disc. The feature starts automatically and all control is via a pop-up menu.

Audio Commentary with Director John Amiel

    A surprisingly entertaining commentary from director John Amiel. The Brit has a lot to say and provides quite informative technical descriptions at a lay level.

Trailers

    The original theatrical trailer for Entrapment (2:04), as well as trailers for The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1:06) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2:26), all presented in 1080p.

    The Australian Region B is nearly identical to the US Region A edition. The only differences are in the non-English audio tracks (which are the same languages but DTS on the Region B rather than Dolby Digital) and subtitles (the Region B contains a far wider assortment than Region A).

    Comparing the DVD edition to the Blu-ray, is a different matter entirely. The Blu-ray misses out on all the extras found on the Region 4 DVD edition, though includes a particularly good commentary track that the Region 4 DVD did not include. The Blu-ray misses out on even more when compared to the Region 1 special edition. Read our original DVD review for a greater rundown on the contents of the DVD editions. Again, Fox skimps on the extras for their catalogue Blu-rays for no apparent reason.

    An entertaining heist flick that holds up fairly well nearly a decade after its original release. Sure the one thing you are guaranteed to remember about it is Catherine Zeta-Jones in leather, but that's not a bad thing in my book!

    The video and audio are both of a very high standard, but the lack of extras will put off many who are contemplating an upgrade from DVD.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall