The Peacemaker Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The Peacemaker Blu-ray Movie Review

The pacemaker won't be working overtime with 'The Peacemaker.'

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 19, 2010

I'm not afraid of the man who wants 10 nuclear weapons...I'm terrified of the man who only wants one.

For such a dubious first picture, DreamWorks sure did rebound nicely. It didn't take long for the studio to surge towards the top of the charts as a Hollywood powerhouse to be reckoned with; with names like Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen behind it, the studio's fast rise to prominence wasn't unexpected. Capturing critical and box office success alike with Oscar winners and fan-favorites such as American Beauty, Gladiator, Deep Impact, Galaxy Quest, and the Shrek family of films -- not to mention being home to several of Director Steven Spielberg's highest-grossing movies, including Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, and War of the Worlds -- the studio earned its deserved reputation as a major player seemingly overnight. It all began back in 1997 with the studio's first major release, a surprisingly lackadaisical Action film directed by Deep Impact's Mimi Leder, The Peacemaker. Sporting a pair of leading actors in George Clooney (Up in the Air) and Nicole Kidman (Days of Thunder) fit not only for the movie but for the cover of the tabloids, the picture earned the studio a respectable chunk of change thanks to its undeniable star power, all despite a disappointingly generic tone and bland, recycled story. Who says first impressions are always the most important?

Don't dis our movie.

At the end of the Cold War, the Russian military is dismantling its stockpile of nuclear weapons. When a nuclear explosion inside Russia rocks the world, word has it that an unfortunate collision between a civilian train and a locomotive hauling the to-be-destroyed weapons triggered the detonation. American intelligence expert Dr. Julia Kelly (Kidman) believes it instead to be result of a dastardly terrorist act. Her military liaison, Lt. Col. Thomas Devoe (Clooney), feels otherwise, theorizing that the collision and explosion could be cover for the theft of no less than nine additional nuclear warheads. The two set out to locate and secure the remaining weapons, unraveling a dangerous plot and finding behind it a determined foe with no demands and no intent on stopping until he's exacted his revenge for a past wrong. Finding death and danger at every turn -- from Russia to New York -- Kelly and Devoe put their own lives on the line to prevent a catastrophe that could kill millions in one of the world's largest cities.

The Peacemaker is a frustrating picture. Director Mimi Leder does everything she can for it, trying her hardest to make lemonade from lemons, but her shooting script is about as lifeless and insipid as a big-budget Action movie can sustain. Missing nuclear weapons; a determined bad guy; an action-hero military man; a good-looking civilian intelligence operative; and a string of predictable, lifeless developments give The Peacemaker something of a James Bond-lite feel. Indeed, the story is something that could sustain some halfhearted 007 effort -- or any Action movie, for that matter -- and that's exactly why The Peacemaker never advances beyond the realm of "passably average." Leder's direction is fluid and shows the promise she'd deliver on in the vastly superior Deep Impact, a picture that succeeds as much on heart and raw emotion as it does on story and Leder's filmmaking abilities. With The Peacemaker, however, she simply can't work beyond what the basics of the script demand. She tries to capture a high-octane, fast-paced, and time-critical façade that seems to backfire as much as it works; The Peacemaker looks and sounds good from start to finish, but all the panache in the world just can't mask its structural shortcomings that will leave audiences feeling like they're simply watching some other movie they've seen countless times before only repackaged and with a fresh coat of paint.

The Peacemaker still works as a very base-level Action movie. It might come up short in most every area, including playing out at a bloated and oftentimes sluggish two-hour runtime, but it does make for a good example of what the traditionally generic mid- to big-budget Action picture looks like. The story's finer details don't really matter; they make the plot a bit more coherent, but The Peacemaker is the sort of movie that works best on cruise control with the audience absorbing faces, basic information, and all the action rather than scrutinizing motives and methods from every conceivable angle. That sort of viewing actually helps the movie, and it allows things like the lack of chemistry between its leads, implausible action scenes, and all the faux tension to fade into the background and rightfully give way to explosions, gunfire, and the good-looking lead characters. Nicole Kidman and George Clooney lack anything resembling a spark; while it's surprising to see such a lack of sexual rapport between them, its absence actually helps the audience to take both the characters and the action and drama more seriously. Kidman and Clooney play their parts well enough, with Kidman managing to pull off one of the better efforts of the grouping that pairs impossibly beautiful women in impossibly intelligent positions, Kidman's effort proving vastly superior to that of Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough, for instance. Meanwhile, Clooney plays pretty much the same style character he plays everywhere else. He carries himself with a confident swagger, delivers his lines with a sly smile, seems to have fun with the part, and he proves himself a capable action hero and leading man. Still, and like Leder's noble efforts, the actors just can't get any additional mileage out of that pesky and terribly average script. Even Hans Zimmer's (Crimson Tide) score is appropriately forgettable, making it the perfect companion to a picture of which the same may be said.

The Peacemaker Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Paramount churns out a decidedly average Blu-ray transfer for The Peacemaker. It looks good in spurts, not-so-good in others, but the good usually outweighs the bad and yields a watchable but not eye-catching 1080p image. Of the transfer's weaknesses, the heavy sharpening appears to be the worst offender. The image often takes on an aggressively sharp appearance, resulting in something of a digital sheen in places, accentuated by intermittent haloing. A few instances of minor compression anomalies in the form of background blocking are also visible. Blacks appear muddy and overwhelming during the picture's opening nighttime train sequence, resulting in foreground details that seem to vanish from the image, replaced instead by giant globules of blackness. Fine detail falls flat in some scenes, but looks rather good in others. For instance, the image captures the minuscule grime and wear on piano keys as seen during one shot, but it often fails to capture the finest of detailing on clothes, faces, and other foreground information. Colors are steady and seemingly accurate, with bright reds, vibrant green foliage, and other aggressive hues standing out but not appearing over-saturated. Grain and background noise appear at an almost overwhelming level in a few scenes while practically vanishing in others. The Peacemaker features more of an artificial look than it does a pleasantly filmic one, but Paramount's uneven 1080p transfer isn't a complete eyesore, either.

The Peacemaker Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Peacemaker features a decent enough DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack that gets the job done but doesn't distinguish itself as one of Blu-ray's better soundtracks. There are a few stretches where the track seems slightly off-balance; the opening scene inside a church is one such instance where the track seems left-side heavy. Whether that's filmmaker intent or not isn't abundantly clear, but it doesn't sound quite right. Nevertheless, the bulk of the track seems appropriately centered about the middle. It takes on a slight harsh edge which doesn't allow for that rich, pristine clarity and absolute seamlessness of the finest soundtracks to come through, resulting in a track that's loud and with lofty goals that are never quite met. The track enjoys some fine directional effects; a train rumbles across the right side of the soundstage in one early scene while action elements often spill out of every speaker. The low end belts out some nicely-realized explosions, while gunfire -- particularly a heavy machine gun that opens up in one scene in chapter 10 -- is potent and deadly, the track capturing the raw power and chest-rattling reverberations of various weapons very well. Dialogue is center-based and effortlessly crisp and satisfying. The Peacemaker isn't in the running to earn a spot in the listing of the year's top soundtracks, but fans should be more or less satisfied with what's offered.

The Peacemaker Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Peacemaker won't make any friends with its subpar collection of extras. All that's here is Stunt Footage (480p, 5:36), an assortment of behind-the-scenes footage of several of the film's action scenes intercut with the final corresponding clip from the film; From the Cutting Room Floor (480p, 3:01), featuring cast and crew praising one another, their comments intercut with what is basically a gag reel; and the picture's theatrical trailer (1080p, 2:30).

The Peacemaker Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nobody's going to mistake The Peacemaker as one of the 1990's premiere Action movies; it's no Terminator 2, Speed, or The Rock, but it is a movie that could very well represent the genre at its absolute midpoint. Mimi Leder does her best to bring an even keel to the picture's terribly generic script, but even her best efforts can't mask what is a very basic story structure that doesn't allow any leeway for originality. By extension, the picture lacks tension and excitement, two key ingredients necessary for any movie of this sort to succeed and two that even the pretty faces of Nicole Kidman and George Clooney can't overcome. Paramount's Blu-ray release of The Peacemaker features a shaky but in no way terrible 1080p transfer, a decent enough lossless soundtrack, and a few scattered extras. Worth a rental.