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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	126 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies Production Notes Featurette - Anatomy Of A Plane Crash
RSDL/Flipper	Flipper (extras)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	Stuart Baird
Studio Distributor	Warner Brothers	Starring	Tommy Lee Jones Wesley Snipes Robert Downey, Jr. Joe Pantoliano Kate Nelligan Tom Wood Irene Jacob
Case	Snapper
RRP	$29.95	Music	Jerry Goldsmith

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?
Subtitles	English French Dutch Italian Spanish Portuguese Arabic English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, but derogatory

    Tommy Lee Jones reprises his role as Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard. This time, the fugitive is ex secret agent Sheridan (Wesley Snipes). Sheridan uncovered some very nasty goings on whilst he was in New York, which resulted in the killing of two agents. He disappeared, but resurfaces when he is involved in a car accident in Chicago. He is extradited to New York via plane. Unfortunately, there is an assassin on the plane, who fails to complete his assigned task, but who does succeed in making the plane crash. Sheridan escapes, and Sam Gerard is assigned to bring him in. Sheridan, meanwhile, is trying to find out who set him up in New York so he can clear his name.

    This is where the movie fails. It is hard to feel any sort of sympathy for Sheridan, even though the movie tries mightily hard to make us sympathetic to his cause. Harrison Ford in The Fugitive had us feeling sympathy for him from the word go. Wesley Snipes just comes across as a coward and a ruthless killer, which he supposedly is not.

    Nonetheless, there is plenty of eye and ear candy to keep the story moving along, so it is still a worthwhile movie, just not as good as its predecessor.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear. Shadow detail was excellent. No low level noise was apparent. There is a slight video skip at 102:25 which is also present on the Region 1 version of this disc, so it is simply bad editing rather than a fault of the transfer. It looks like two different takes of the same scene had to be combined for some reason, and they just didn't quite fit together.

    The colours were beautifully rendered and clear at all times.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor aliasing, particularly in a single shot of some venetian blinds. Film artefacts were generally quite rare, though they did have a bit of a tendency to occur in little groups. There were a few more film artefacts than there should have been, but this was not particularly troublesome.

    This disc is a flipper in the sense that the major extra is on the other side of the disc. The movie itself is on Side A of the disc in its entirety.

Audio

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand, though a few words here and there were difficult to understand.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The music by Jerry Goldsmith was in his usual style, and very similar in style to The Fugitive. It was frequently present, and complemented the on-screen action very appropriately, enhancing the drama, tension and excitement of the movie significantly.

     The surround channel was frequently and heavily used for music, ambience and special effects, creating a usually very enveloping soundtrack. At times, the sound was all up-front-and-centre, but this only rarely occurred. I specifically compared the Region 1 English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack to the matrix mix that we have been supplied with, and there is significantly more directionality in the 5.1 soundtrack as compared with the matrix mix. This applies to both the front soundstage and to the rear soundstage. Dialogue is also clearer and easier to understand in the 5.1 mix. A lot of the time, there is minimal difference between a 5.1 mix and a matrix mix (eg Das Boot), but in this case, the 5.1 soundtrack is sorely missed.

    The .1 channel had lots of signal supplied to it from the processor in ProLogic mode. Listening to the 5.1 mix, the .1 channel was used aggressively by this mix as well.

Menu

Anatomy Of A Plane Crash

Cast & Crew Biographies

Production Notes

    The video quality is nearly perfect.

    The audio quality is very good for a matrix mix, though the 5.1 soundtrack is clearly better.

    The extras present are very limited. We have been drastically short-changed with the extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
24th March 1999