6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.1 |
Pete Nessip is a Federal Marshall who, teamed with his brother Terry, is escorting criminal computer genius Earl Leedy to a new prison facility. Pete, Terry and Earl are on a jet en route to Earl's new lockup when terrorists attempt a daring hijacking. Terry is killed in an explosion aboard the plane, and suddenly Earl is missing. Pete discovers that a team of sky-diving outlaws, led by former DEA agent gone bad Ty Moncrief, have snatched Earl from his flight and spirited him away for a special raid on Washington D.C. Ty and his men intend to take advantage of an obscure rule in which the normally restricted airspace in Washington D.C. is open to parachute enthusiasts on July 4. Eager to avenge his brother's death and put both Ty and Earl behind bars, Pete recruits sky-diving expert Jessie Crossman to teach him how to infiltrate Ty's team of sky-bound criminals.
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Gary Busey, Yancy Butler, Michael Jeter, Corin NemecThriller | 100% |
Action | 85% |
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, 24-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 1.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
i'm impressed...not with you.
1980s Director extraordinaire John Badham (Wargames, Short Circuit, Blue Thunder) tries his
hand at a high-flying and technologically-centered Crime/Action hybrid picture that flops badly with
every missed opportunity and clichéd character, the result an insipid, lazy, and most detrimental,
dull picture that plods along with no sense of urgency, tension, humor, or excitement. Drop
Zone -- so named for the target areas skydivers aim for when maneuvering about wind
currents while attached to their parachutes -- delivers decent aerial photography but flounders on
the
ground, the picture offering practically no redeeming values or reason to watch beyond a few
scattered minutes of skydiving material that, frankly, can be better enjoyed elsewhere and not
attached to one of the 90's most forgettable films.
Wesley Snipes drops in for some action.
Drop Zone plummets onto Blu-ray with a middling 1080p, 2.35:1-framed transfer that's another one of those unfortunate transfers that looks good here and there but contains plenty of flaws that reveal themselves upon closer inspection. The image is generally vibrant, with colors so bright that they sometimes strain the eyes, for instance the bright blue seats on the doomed flight as seen near the beginning of the film. Drop Zone is an incredibly bright film with a wide array of colors, and for the most part, color reproduction is the film's strength. Detail, however, wavers; the image picks up the finer nuances in smaller objects in some scenes, but elsewhere, it looks flat and devoid of more than cursory details and basic shapes. The image looks a bit smoothed out but not completely detrimentally so early on, but the back half of the picture -- particularly its dark scenes -- feature an extraordinary amount of grain. Additionally, plenty of random artifacts and dirt cover the image and the film's darker climax goes inexplicably soft, a harsh contrast to the film's generally sharpened appearance. Fortunately, blacks are generally presentable, while flesh tones remain neutral shades throughout. All in all, Drop Zone doesn't look terrible, but videophiles will find plenty to nitpick about this release.
Drop Zone's DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack, like the video, proves serviceable but hardly noteworthy. Dialogue comes across as slightly harsh and underdeveloped, unnatural and not blending with the rest of the track. The picture's sound effects are neither poorly realized nor exquisitely presented; everything has a generic, no-frills feel to it, from jet engines soaring off the runway to the rock-themed score. Action is certainly loud, far more aggressive in volume than dialogue-heavy scenes, and more sensitive listeners may find themselves scrambling for the remote on more than one occasion throughout. Discrete surround effects often play as forced and phony, and atmospherics are only partially convincing, coming across as jumbled and lacking in precision. Fortunately, some of the skydiving scenes fare better, the track sending hard gusts of wind through the soundstage and doing a good job of convincing the listener of hurtling through the sky, at least from a purely aural perspective. Gunshots as heard during the climax deliver a nice ricochet sound effect and a full back channel presence, and bass rumbles during several scenes to add a nice, hefty support structure to the track. All told, Drop Zone has its moments but, for the most part, this disc offers a fledgling, passable track that's about as good as the movie deserves.
Drop Zone plops onto Blu-ray with only one film-related extra, the Drop Zone theatrical trailer (480p, 2:05).
Drop Zone is a lazy sleeping man's picture with no redeeming qualities of note. A terribly bland script, a recycled plot, stale direction, lifeless acting, and a startling absence of action drag this movie down into the depths of obscurity where it's best left buried and forgotten. When even direct-to-video Action flicks have more to offer than this, it's a sign that it's time to bail, and the best time to give up on Drop Zone is before the movie even begins (forget "before it takes off," because this one never does anything more than lumber along the runway and slowly meander into some grassy side area before coming to a halt). Lionsgate's Blu-ray presentation is about what one would expect of a bad movie, the studio slapping the film onto a 25GB disc with an inconsistent but passable technical presentation and a tacked-on trailer. Truly, Drop Zone is one to avoid.
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