6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 1.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
A team of highly trained operatives find themselves trapped inside an isolated military compound after its artificial intelligence is suddenly shut down. The crew begins to experience strange and horrific phenomena as they attempt to uncover what killed the previous team.
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Anne Heche, Dave Annable, Colby Lopez, Kyle ClementsThriller | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Horror | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
Wesley Snipes’ well publicized travails with the Feds over alleged tax improprieties, a situation which actually ended with Snipes being imprisoned for several years, may account for the actor’s participation in a lamentable enterprise like Armed Response. After all, there are attorneys to pay and delinquent taxes to reimburse, right? But why any number of other folks like Anne Heche, WWE “superstar” Seth Rollins (fresh from his spectacular big screen debut in Sharknado: The 4th Awakens) and Gene Simmons (who, along with Snipes, co-produced) are involved is a question for the ages (or something like that), though the sole supplement accompanying this release has most of the actors effusing about being in a project with Snipes and Simmons. In a setup that plays a bit like an unconvincing mishmash of elements culled from The Belko Experiment and any given episode of The X-Files, Armed Response offers a coterie of CIA black ops types who are investigating mysterious doings at a fortress like facility known as the Temple, a high tech operation invented by Gabriel (Dave Annable), which is utilized in “renditions” of terrorists. The Temple includes an AI component which is able to magically read the minds of alleged perpetrators, though as the film documents in its opening melee, there’s some kind of ghost in the machine which takes out the staff. To the outside world, the Temple has suddenly gone “offline”, and without any clues about what’s gone on inside, an investigation is begun. That gets Gabe’s former boss Isaac (Wesley Snipes) involved, who in turn comes out to Gabe’s remote refuge to recruit him to help find out what happened. Gabe is one of those wounded soul types, still trying to recover from the devastating death of his young daughter, but of course he jumps right back into the fray, reteaming with former cohorts Riley (Anne Heche) and Brett (Seth Rollins). The bulk of the rest of the film posits this crew, along with a few others, inside the Temple, where (no surprise here) they quickly discover the corpses of the former staff and then (also unsurprisingly) find themselves trapped in the facility with some kind of supernatural force which is intent on — well, does it matter, really?
Armed Response is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. No technical data on the film is readily available online (that I could find, anyway), but this was digitally shot and offers a generally decent if at times problematic looking transfer. There's some minor image instability in a number of aerial shots, especially early in the film, and the bulk of the Temple footage is awash in some muddy lighting conditions which don't really support fine detail levels. When lighting conditions allow, and when the camera is more or less stationary, detail levels improve markedly. There are what look to be lo-res sources used at times (as in things like closed circuit footage and the like), some of which looks pretty shoddy (see screenshot 19). Some of the CGI is a little iffy, but a lot of it takes place in such dimly lit environments that it's arguably not as bad looking as it might have otherwise been.
Perhaps surprisingly, Armed Response's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is consistently immersive and offers a glut of extremely forceful LFE. A lot of the sound mix is kind of hokey, frankly, but it's energetic much of the time, adding at least a little oomph to an otherwise draggy enterprise. Dialogue, effects and score are all rendered cleanly and clearly, with great prioritization and wide dynamic range.
It's probably churlish to state that Snipes has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire with regard to getting out of stir only to make something as underdeveloped and ultimately kind of silly as Armed Response. Video has occasional stumbles, but audio is first rate, for those considering a purchase.
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