Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Collide Blu-ray Movie Review

It's better than it looks.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman May 29, 2017

Drugs and car chases and gunfights and standoffs and large sums of money and a sick girl in peril aren't exactly new to the movie landscape. They're all quite stale, in fact, and whether taken together or individually usually make for a recycled sort of movie that, at its rarest best, serves as an entertaining time killer. Collide sees all of those elements right there near the top of "rarest best." The movie, from Director Eran Creevy (Welcome to the Punch), takes the best of all the elements and doesn't necessarily do anything new or special with them, just lines them up and spits them out in near perfect order, somehow squeezing plenty of excitement, tension, and solid characterization from all of those stale components. Though hardly fresh, the film is certainly invigorating, lean, very enjoyable, a surprise in how well it's done with its collection of off-the-shelf genre staples all colliding and making for a pretty solid movie.

Couple in trouble.

Casey Stein (Nicholas Hoult) is an American who has fled to Germany in search of a new life. He's found illicit employment as a midlevel money runner for a German kingpin named Geran (Ben Kingsley). One night, at a club, Casey spots a beautiful American girl named Juliette (Felicity Jones). His advances are largely met with a cold shoulder, but she's impressed by his persistence. He's so impressed with her that he quits his job to offer her a more stable life. As they fall in love, it's revealed that she's sick. She's in need of dialysis and a kidney transplant, but their status as foreigners means they cannot afford the cost associated with her condition. Casey reluctantly gets back in the game and, to accelerate his payday, plans a scheme to rip off a lot of drugs and cash from the dangerous drug lord Hagen Kahl (Anthony Hopkins).

Collide epitomizes "empty entertainment" done right. It's fast, relentless (particularly after its necessary, but slow, establishing first act), and presents all of its moving parts with appropriate intensity that compliments the high-skill, hard-hitting excitement that defines its second and third acts. The movie enjoys a well balanced approach between characterization, car chase thrills, gunplay, showdowns, and smart character moments that dig deeply into all of the primaries, and the two drug kingpins in particular. The movie shines when it's Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley facing off with one another. It's a great pairing, and both actors turn in excellent performances, aided in part by a well-written (though, like the rest of the movie, fairly generic at the core) script that fleshes them out and gives them several face-off scenes in which they absolutely chew every second. Nicholas Hoult, best known for his role in various X-Men films, impresses in the lead. He's tough, believably skilled at what he does, never a superman, and displays a range of emotion partly fueled by fear, partly fueled by desire to save his girl, and partly fueled by adrenaline. He opens up emotionally as necessary and closes in to stay alive when the stakes are at their highest. Felicity Jones has little to do in the movie, but she carries her part well and makes for a believable love interest and victim.

But for as good as the acting is, it's the visceral experiences that allow the movie to keep up appearances. Sure, it's all standard stuff, but it's electric. Truly, the movie runs on high octane, high energy fuel. It's rough and tumble, a bit gritty, realistic to a point and never too far into fantasy land, either. As with everything else in the movie, it's finely honed in that sweet spot middle ground where there's enough flash to dazzle the audience and enough grit to keep it all fairly well rooted in just enough realism that it doesn't turn into absurdity, where the movie becomes less about its story and characters and more about an excuse to spit car chases all over the screen. The movie is very good about exceeding expectations, about making the viewer drift from perception and get pulled into the experience. This is fairly generic high-speed action moviemaking done pretty well right. There's not a lot of room for complaint.

Collide Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The digitally photographed Collide looks spectacular on Blu-ray. Universal's 1080p presentation brings with it an attractive, film-like texturing, refusing to go digital flat or glossy and maintaining an authoritative complexity and textural accuracy throughout. Detailing is always exemplary. The obvious facial features are impressive, showcasing every fine pore, line, bit of stubble, and other detail with efficient ease and tangible depth. Cars are shiny and slick (except when they're mangled, of course) and various environments, whether a diner or a bar or any of the diverse locations seen throughout the film, offer first-class clarity. Colors are impressively accurate and very naturally even-keeled. Whether brightly lit exteriors, well illuminated interiors, or various darker scenes, the platte always maintains a basic excellence of eye-catching depth and neutrality, never pushing too aggressive or too dull. Bright blue eyes, red blood, and of course various colors of cars shine. A baby blue jacket Anthony Hopkins' character wears midway through the film is one of the most pronounced and authentic colors in the movie. Black levels are magnificently deep and accurate without showing crush. Flesh tones appear true. The image shows a sprinkling of light noise on occasion and there's a hint of aliasing in a few shots; a car grill seen outside a gas station around the 64-minute mark is probably the most obvious example. Overall, however, this is a very strong image from Universal.

Collide Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Collide's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack packs a good, hearty punch. The highlight comes during car chases. Not only is there plenty of maneuvering and a stage filled with tire squeals, zipping moves through traffic, and the general din of high-speed mayhem, there are also several good examples of ridiculously potent, but very even and natural, low end thunder when the car really kicks into gear and the engine is put to serious work. Gunfire plays with strong authoritative punch, with a good example coming during a shootout in convenience store partway through the movie. It features both pistol rounds and shotgun blasts in a fairly tight space. Music is well defined and spacious, and an early bar sequence offers a tremendously potent pulsating low end and a nice filtering of music through the listening area. Small bits of atmospherics enhance various environments throughout the film, a good example coming in a restaurant in chapter four. Dialogue is impressively clear, center positioned, and always well prioritized above any element, even pitch gun battles or autobahn chaos.

Collide Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Beyond some assorted previews for other Universal titles, this Blu-ray release of Collide contains no supplemental content. A DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy are included with purchase.

Collide Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Collide is deceptively good. Everything about it screams "stay away" and "generic." And to an extent it is generic. None of its pieces yield any sort of base creativity, but all put together in just the right mixture the movie far and away exceeds expectations with a perfectly balanced assault of characterization, car chases, gun play, and intensity. It's never hyper real, and it's never gritty real. It's just a good, adrenaline-fuled movie that won't go down in the history books but that really nails that sweet spot for charged, contemporary action. Universal's Blu-ray is disappointingly featureless, but video and audio are top-notch. Recommended.