20 Million Miles to Earth Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

20 Million Miles to Earth Blu-ray Movie Review

Mill Creek has released the 1957 film '20 Million Miles to Earth' to Blu-ray. The film was previous made available on Blu-ray by Sony. That disc is superior to this one, and it also contains a colorized version of the film not available here. This Mill Creek version is currently only available in a four film, two-disc collection alongside 'The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock' (with which this film shares a disc), 'Creature with the Atmo Brain,' and 'It Came from Beneath the Sea').

20 Million Miles to Earth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mill Creek's 1080p Blu-ray presentation of 20 Million Miles to Earth looks more like It Came from Beneath the Sea, which is a good thing because it doesn't look like Creature with the Atom Brain, but it is also bad news because it's also middling. The image is very watchable and serviceable. Grain can be coarse at times but fairly even and naturally occurring at others. The image never looks overly processed, but it is also nowhere near so crisp and satisfying as it could have been. Rear projection elements stand out like a sore thumb and obviously lack the same level of crispness and clarity as the general content, but even then there are issues with skin complexity and natural detail revelation; both can look flatter and smoother than is ideal. The grayscale content is fine, with adequate range in the middle and decent enough blacks and whites. This is by no means a reference quality picture, but it holds serve, especially with a general lack of print wear beyond some obvious transitional shots. Compression issues are likewise not serious.

20 Million Miles to Earth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack is perfectly serviceable. Clarity is solid in all areas, notably in dialogue, which drives the film and presents with a satisfying and natural front-center stage placement. The track is not extraordinarily wide otherwise, but music and effects do find their rightful places beyond the middle ground, with some nice examples of directionality (some moving cars at the 48-minute mark being a good example). Musical clarity is not precise, but considering the age of the source what is here is perfectly adequate. Listeners should find this to be a good, balanced 2.0 track; it's not going to push sound systems in any way, but it carries the core material to basic audio satisfaction.

20 Million Miles to Earth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements directly associated with this film on the disc; it is the only one of the four in the Sc-Fi Vault Collection not to include an audio commentary track. On the contrary, the Sony disc includes a plethora of content, including a commentary and a number of featurettes and interviews.

20 Million Miles to Earth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

20 Million Miles to Earth is a prime example of 1950s science fiction filmmaking. It offers up a thin plot, thin characters, some laughable moments (even for a film of its era) and a somewhat lethargic pace. However, it's remarkable in that it offers a fine example of 1950s special effects by one of the masters of his or any other era. This is a decent disc, looking just about as good as one could expect from Mill Creek. The audio track is serviceable as well, but the lack of bonus content is, while not surprising, still disappointing. The Sony disc is still available on the used market for a fair price and offers a substantially better package.