6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.8 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.7 |
Renegade FBI agent Art Jeffries combats ruthless Federal agents to protect Simon, a nine-year-old autistic boy who has cracked MERCURY, the government's new billion-dollar "unbreakable" code. Program Chief Nick Kudrow orders the "security threat" eliminated.
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Miko Hughes, Kim Dickens, Carrie PrestonThriller | 100% |
Action | 96% |
Crime | 48% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
D-Box
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Hollywood likes to jump on various bandwagons, not to state the obvious. Sometime a few years ago autism became the newest cause célèbre, albeit one with some personal connections, as various stars (like Jenny McCarthy) actually had children who had been diagnosed with the disability. Autism is one of the most misunderstood and some would argue misdiagnosed ailments in current medical circles. My own nephew is “heavily involved,” as autism experts term those with severe disabilities, and his father (my wife’s brother) is an M.D. who is internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading autism researchers, one whose theories of a dietary component to the disease have led to several bestsellers, so seeing the affliction portrayed in the mass media is perhaps more of a personal event for me than it is for those who only know of autism through the relatively recent mass media coverage autism has received. While it’s a good thing to bring a disease to the awareness of the public at large, autism, more than other, perhaps more readily understood maladies, has suffered from not only news coverage, where a variety of competing theories about the cause of the disease has led to some dismissing the disease itself as a reality, to popular cultural approaches, where everything from the linked Asperger’s Syndrome to “heavily involved” sufferers of autism have just as frequently been lumped under the same rubric. In Mercury Rising we’re confronted by a supposedly heavily involved autism sufferer who is nonetheless also a sort of idiot savant, as unseemly and politically incorrect a label as that may be. Here autism is depicted as a disease which prevents a young child from communicating (a relatively accurate depiction, at least in many cases) while at the same time allowing him to break a super-secret United States intelligence code, which of course puts the lad in extreme danger. This sort of sensationalistic use of a very severe disability is troubling at the least and when coupled with the often outlandish twists and turns Mercury Rising takes makes the film so distasteful that any putative thriller elements are often left in the dust.
"Are you the agent who got me cast in this thing?"
Mercury Rising is a somewhat mixed bag on Blu-ray, with what is probably the same VC-1 encoded port that also was released on HD-DVD. The film, in 1080p and 2.35:1, suffers from what I must assume is intentionally low contrast in a lot of dimly lit shots, and though black levels are relatively good, the lack of clearly defined contrast tends to bathe these segments in a sort of shadowy murk that robs the image of some fine detail. The other troubling aspect to this transfer is some pretty noticeable edge enhancement. In fact, in one far shot of a plaza filled with backlit people scurrying about, I almost thought I had wandered into a cut scene from Willis' The Sixth Sense and was seeing spirits, so rampant was the haloing. (Sorry, couldn't resist). Otherwise, though, Mercury Rising sports a decently sharp and at times very well saturated image that fares best in brightly lit close-up scenes, where fine detail is excellent and at times exceptional. There does seem to be the typical Universal penchant for fairly aggressive DNR, but it's not at the egregious levels of other Uni catalog releases.
Much better is the finely immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, which supplies a surprisingly varied soundscape that includes the requisite action sequences as well as quieter and more intimate scenes. The best elements in terms of complete immersion are the action sequences, notably the over the top finale which includes machine guns, an errant helicopter and Baldwin's sneer, which is virtually audible. In this segment we get gunshots scattered throughout the soundfield with sometimes alarming directionality, and a really fun and involving mix of sound effects and the occasional Helen Keller-ish scream from young Simon. The quieter elements of the film also fare very well, with crystal clear dialogue and well mixed (if occasionally cloying) underscore. Fidelity and dynamic range are both excellent throughout Mercury Rising..
The temperature doesn't soar on these paltry supplements:
Mercury Rising has two problems it can't overcome. It sensationalizes a devastating affliction for no good reason. More importantly, it covers the same ground that a thousand other films have trod. There's an intriguing premise buried underneath the clichés here, but the film never—ahem—rises to the occasion.
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