Bio-Force 1 (Mutant Species) (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	95:42 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	David A. Prior
Studio Distributor	Southern Star Buena Vista Australia	Starring	Leo Rossi Ted Prior Grant Gelt Denise Crosby Powers Boothe Wilford Brimley
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$19.95	Music	William T. Stromberg John W. Morgan Lennie Moore

    Unfortunately there is little positive that I can say about this movie. I think you'll find many many other titles more interesting, but if you can get through the first 30 minutes then the movie does get a tiny bit more interesting.

    The military has developed a hybrid DNA that was designed for use by their soldiers in order to "make" the perfect fighting machine. Since the dawn of man, we as humans have designed more elaborate weapons and outfitted our soldiers with these tools to maim and kill. It is only now with the advent of this new medical tool that we have the power to wipe out anyone with relative ease.

    Because this chemical cocktail is so infectious, it is decided to pack it into a canister and send it to the moon via rocket. Unfortunately (and quite obviously) the rocket never leaves our atmosphere and crashes back to Earth. To fix the problem, the Army calls in its elite Special Forces Bio-Detail unit to locate and destroy the deadly cargo. The team, headed by Lieutenant Hollinger (Leo Rossi), believes this is just another search and destroy mission but when Hollinger reads his secret orders, he learns that this could well be their last mission. There are no surprises for guessing that one or more become infected, but can this mutation be stopped before infecting anyone else?

Video

    The transfer is presented in a Pan & Scan aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer, while not sharp, is still of rather good quality and can be likened to a high quality videocassette. Shadow detail is quite poor with an enormous amount of detail being lost in the all-too-common dark scenes. There is mild low level noise.

    The colours were dull, although this is not overly noticeable as most of the cast is dressed in army fatigues. The general wears what I assume is a bright Hawaiian shirt through the entire production. In this transfer, however, it looks like it has had one too many washes or been left out on the line in bright sunlight too often. It is the dullest Hawaiian shirt I have ever seen. There were no other irregularities with the colour rendition of this transfer - just don't expect any splashes of bright, primary colours, since there aren't any.

    There were very few MPEG artefacts to be seen but there was some slight telecine wobble during the end credits. Aliasing is very rare and very mild when it does occur. Unfortunately, film artefacts are quite common but are often black in colour and blend into the dark foliage in the background.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this disc.

    This disc is single sided and single layered and therefore there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only a single English Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track on this DVD.

    The dialogue was clear and relatively easy to understand. Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer.

    The musical score has been credited to William T. Stromberg with additional music from Lennie Moore and John W. Morgan who have all done a decidedly better job than those on the other side of the camera. While the music was nothing special, it never felt out of place or lacking like other areas of the movie did. In fact, it provided some stability and balance to the entire production.

    The surround channels were not used. You will need to engage ProLogic or ProLogic II decoding to expand the soundfield to something that is more balanced and enjoyable.

    The stereo soundtrack did not use the subwoofer. There are several instances where explosions had a visual impact but sounded flat without the sub's presence.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    As a lover of films, it was painful to sit through Bio-Force 1. I doubt that even Ed Wood could have made anything positive from this material.

    The video quality was average, but this would probably be the most redeeming feature of the entire production.

    The audio is only in stereo with no surround encoding but if you run it through ProLogic or ProLogic II processing then you will hear a more acceptable soundfield.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall