:
Theatrical: 20th Century Fox & Linda Orbst Productions
Video: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Disc:
Region: 'A'-locked
(as verified by the
Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)
Runtime: 1:55:58.868
Disc Size: 22,240,222,590 bytes
Feature Size: 20,706,367,488 bytes
Video Bitrate: 17.04 Mbps
Chapters: 30
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: June 9th, 2009
Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.4:1
Resolution: 1080p
Video codec: MPEG-2
Bitrate:
Audio:
DTS-HD Master Audio English 4299 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 4299
kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Dolby Digital Audio French 448 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 448 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean, none
Extras
• Theatrical Trailers
Comment:
The Movie:
7
Despite Jack Lemmon's riveting performance in The China
Syndrome, that movie is destined to be remembered for
its prescient warnings about nuclear reactor meltdowns. I
saw it just after it opened in the spring 1979, hours, it
seemed, before - or after, it doesn't matter - the accident
at Three Mile Island, but I clearly remember the gasps in
the audience when the scientist said that a china syndrome
meltdown would affect an area about the size of
Pennsylvania! Chernobyl followed seven years later.
I suspect that The Siege, which hasn't the benefit of
Lemmon's emotional authority (or his character's) nor as
coherent a script, will reap a similar fate. When the movie
came out in November of 1998, the World Trade Center had
survived a near disastrous bombing five years earlier. But,
with its ultimate fate another three years off, critical
opinion of the movie was nearly unanimous in its damning of
its racist tone – explicit and implicit. My suggestion is
that you read a couple of these reviews (the ones by Roger
Ebert
HERE and Mike LaSalle
HERE are representative) then watch – or re-watch
the movie. It's an interesting exercise, regardless of your
politics or what you think of the film.
As it happened, my first experience with The Siege
was last night, and I was fascinated with the movie as a
political statement. It wasn't even a reach for me to see
the Annette Bening character as a metaphor for the way the
U.S. sleeps with the "enemies" of our "enemies" only to be
bombed to the point of non-existence (in a political sense)
for our trouble.
I'll leave the question of racism to you, and dare you to
try to keep 9-11 and subsequent events in the Mid-East
separate from your critical evaluation of the movie as a
film.
Image: 8/8
NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were ripped directly from the
Blu-ray disc.
The first number indicates a relative level of excellence
compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale.
The second number places this image along the full range of
DVD and Blu-ray discs.
The changes in tint from scene to scene are no doubt
intentional, but I'm less confident about the waxy
appearance of Denzel and others in the opening reel or two,
once we are situated in the Federal Bldg. Probably some DNR
at work here, along with some occasional edge enhancement
now and then, although the action is so pumped up I had to
remind myself to be on the lookout for it. Bit rates are
low: averaging in the mid-teens.
CLICK EACH
BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio & Music: 8/7
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix is busy, highly
textured and dynamic – shall we say, bombastic – by turns.
There's a lot going on here: It's a city under attack: vans
and buses exploding, copters circling, automatic weapons
firing from all directions, and a few screeching tires – all
of this is immersively captured in the surround mix with
lots of bite and LFE, compliments of DTS HD-MA.
Operations: 5
Since there are no extra features and the menu is simplicity
itself, we are left to discuss the exploitive mind-set of
the promotional summaries on the back tone. On the other
hand, let's not.
Extras: 1
A few trailers and promos.
Recommendation: 7
I think we can agree that the resolution of the duel between
Denzel and Bruce is wincing, but the movie does ask some
good questions – I think they were good questions before
9-11, just as they are now. As we see these questions
debated now, they may feel heavy-handed, but ten years ago,
no one was listening, not that The Siege was its best
messenger. Image and sound quality are both very good. No
extra features. Fox. Hmmm.
Leonard Norwitz
June 21st, 2009
