Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		0.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

December Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 21, 2021

Mill Creek has released the 1991 Drama film 'December' to Blu-ray. At time of writing the film is only available from Mill Creek as part of a two film, one disc bundle with 'Toy Soldiers.'

December 7, 1941. Five boys -- Allister Gibbs (Balthazar Getty), Russell Littlejohn (Jason London), Tim Mitchell (Brian Krause), Kip Gibbs (Wil Wheaton), and Chris Young (Stuart Brayton) -- at an east coast boarding school are just learning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They all know it means war, and perhaps the end of their college careers. Each of the boys responds in a different, unique way to the news: about how it will impact their lives, how willing they are to fight, and what the event means for the broader view of the world around them.

The film proves mildly compelling as an exercise in historical perspective but it's not particularly engaging as a cinematic experience. It's stagnant and the material better suited for the stage. The cast is enthusiastic and all of the main performances are excellent: genuine, deep, driven by various human responses to the news and what the news means for their futures. But the material, as it's presented here, at least, lacks ambition and falls stale relatively early. It doesn't help that, at least on this Blu-ray, the picture quality is so bad as to distract from everything else.

December Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Talk about living in infamy. December joins the ranks of the "worst of the worst" on Blu-ray, surpassing even bottom scraping transfers like The Freshman and Like Father Like Son as one of the all-time examples of gross video mismanagement.

Here is a transfer that is absolutely riddled with compression issues. Macroblocking is severe, as in every single shot is defined by the horrid digital squares that render the image not on the verge of breakup, but already there. There is absolutely no remnant of the inherent film stability. It's been replaced by a very digitized, chunky, and ugly series of blocks that leave characters and backgrounds alike more defined by the awful compression than anything else. There is no single factor that is more prominent in the movie than the macroblocking. It's everywhere, leaving nothing free from its grasp.

Worse, jagged edges are commonplace, detail is low, and clarity is next to nonexistent. By every measure the image looks like worse than a DVD. It never takes advantage of the 1080p resolution. Faces are absent of any kind of definable detailing. Clothes are likewise flat, and the overwhelming compression renders such "luxuries" for this transfer null and void, anyway. Seriously, there's zero texture on the red sweaters the students wear. They are just a shape of blocky color, even in close-up. Viewers might spot a hint -- a hint -- of very basic texturing on a white muscle shirt or the odd facial close-up lucky enough to momentarily see a minor reduction in the mess, but that's really grasping at straws for something nice to say about this.

Colors are a mess, too. Almost the entire movie has the same red-push look to it. The red sweaters and the brown walls are about the only colors of note on display. There's no tonal nuance or accuracy. The school sweaters are just a mass of poorly defined and dull red. The brown walls show no life, and even the scattered examples of color -- books on shelves, a map on the wall -- offer zero opportunity for more than tonal identification. There's not even a smidgen of life here. It's extraordinary how lifeless the whole thing is. Add poor blacks, pasty skin tones, flat whites, and some occasional print wear and this just might be the single worst Blu-ray on the market. It's historically bad.

Note that the film is presented in a 4x3 aspect ratio which results in vertical "black bars" on either side of the 1.78:1 HD display.

December Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

December's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack at least achieves a baseline competency. With the video quality so horrendously poor one might not be surprised to find a track that is as sour on the ears as the visuals are to the eyes. But here Mill Creek's presentation at least handles essentials well enough which, frankly, are all that is required. The film's sound design is extremely simple. It offers a misleading hint as the film opens with a surprisingly aggressive array of amplified sound collage during a Pearl Harbor montage. But after all of that activity is a very straightforward listen of little more than basic dialogue, which is clear and front-center imaged. There's really not much more at work in this one. Music finds acceptable spacing and adequate clarity.

December Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included.

December Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

December plays like a stage production photographed for the screen. It's confined and visually basic. Its focus is entirely on the characters and their responses to tragedy and the prospects of war. The film will certainly speak to anyone who may have experienced similar conversations in the decades to follow, notably on 9/11. The movie is well worth watching, imperfect and not particularly "cinematic" as it may be, but the Blu-ray is an unmitigated disaster. The picture quality is historically poor. Truly, it's one of the worst, if not the worst, this reviewer has encountered. The audio is nothing special but neither is the film's sound design. No extras are included. Skip it; even casual audiences will notice how awful it looks.