6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A young businessman who lands a community service sentence falls in with a group of misfit kids who need mentoring. With the help of a pro instructor, he works to get the kids ready for a big underground dance competition.
Starring: Marques Houston, Mekia Cox, Christopher Jones (II), Chandler Kinney, Lynn WhitfieldMusic | 100% |
Coming of age | 50% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
If you believe the trailers, the Blu-ray packaging and the marketing campaign, Battlefield America is another urban dance movie from the makers of You Got Served. In fact, Battlefield's dancing is just the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. The film is an after-school special aimed squarely at the family market, as if its makers were doing the same type of community service that the film's protagonist is forced to undergo. Everything in it has been tailored for the kid audience. The depiction of impoverished city life is sanitized, with no weapons and hardly any drugs in sight; with minor exceptions, the language is tame enough for broadcast TV; the two romantic relationships never progress beyond a kiss; and the tough-talking tots all turn out to be great kids trying desperately to cover bruised feelings, while yearning for a kindly adult to notice their pain and provide a healing touch. A more family-friendly pop confection could not have been better prepared if you'd ordered it straight from the kitchens of Disney. Hip-hop impressario Chris Stokes directed and co-wrote the script with star Marques Houston, one of the leads from You Got Served. A clever running in-joke of Battlefield America is that Houston's hard-driving overachiever keeps protesting that he can't dance, whereas any viewer of You Got Served knows that Houston is an energetic and agile dancer who has to restrain his skill for the sake of his Battlefield character. It's the youngsters who get to show off, plus their two adult teachers. Houston isn't alone in having to hold himself back. Actress Lynn Whitfield signed on with Stokes as co-producer of the project. Once upon a time, she mastered tricky moves to portray the legendary Josephine Baker, but here she plays a cynical bureaucrat whose icy demeanor gradually melts as she watches Houston's character grow as a person and the kids he's mentoring blossom under his influence.
Battlefield America was shot with Red digital cameras by Miko Dannels, who only recently graduated to cinematographer after working up from the ranks as grip, gaffer and chief lighting technician. The results, after the usual extensive color grading in post-production, reflect the typical virtues of digital capture in the lack of noise and the sharpness of the image. ARC Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray offers a consistently pleasing, colorful display that doesn't suffer from the aggressive "edginess" that sometimes afflicts digitally originated productions. The dance competitions are the obvious showcase, because they present the most elaborate imagery with the widest array of intense colors. However, the quieter hues of the community center and of Sean's office are equally well represented. So is the client function to which Sean invites Sarah, where the formal attire of numerous guests shows off the transfer's deep blacks. Sean and the Bad Boys arrive for their final show in similarly formal attire, which makes them look a little like the Men in Black. Motion artifacts and other issues that sometimes result from a detour through the analog realm were not in evidence, nor did I observe any compression-related problems. Note: The disc jacket lists the film's running time as "145 minutes", which is a misprint. The actual running time is 1:45, which translates to 105 minutes. Whoever prepared the jacket copy failed to perform the conversion.
The film's DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack aims for impact, not realism. During the dance competitions, the roar of the crowd is mixed louder than the music itself, and it fills the surround array so that music becomes a throbbing presence beneath the crowd. At key moments in an especially powerful performance, the dancers literally shake the ground (the camera moves, as if being vibrated), and a deep tone registers the shock, momentarily overpowering both the music and the crowd. It's hokey, but it's an effective way to reproduce the dancers' sense of "owning" the floor. Even in the non-dancing scenes, which are far more numerous, the soundtrack doesn't aim to reproduce a realistic environment. The dialogue in these scenes is either comedic or functional (or both), and the track conveys it clearly, often supporting it with songs or underscore (by Michael J. Leslie), which may be routed to the surrounds for effect. In short, the film's track takes full advantage of the 5.1 format, but not in the usual way.
When Battlefield America was briefly in theaters in June 2012, the few critics who reviewed it were unfavorable, leaving the film with a 9% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. "Generic", "awkward" and "earnest" were among the adjectives. I could have easily written the same review, except that it was obvious to me that I'm not the target audience. This is a kids' film through and through, and I wouldn't expect adults to enjoy it any more than I'd expect kids to stay awake through some grown-up psychological thriller. The marketing couldn't have been clearer ("Where Kids Rule!"), and the film's resolution in which (spoiler alert!) everyone lives happily ever after is tailor-made for the fairy tale crowd. Recommended for family viewing, but rent if you're not sure.
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