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Days Of Thunder
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Andy James & Noor Razzak (2nd February 2009). |
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The Film
 "Days of Thunder" is essentially "Top Gun" (1986) with stock cars replacing fighter jets. And that should really tell you everything you need to know about it. I imagine that was even the pitch for it. Same director, same star, same producers (Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson – the late eighties kings of high-concept). The perfunctory story has Tom Cruise’s outsider rebel, who’s pretty hot shit behind the wheel and who has an insatiable desire to be the best; learning lessons the hard way, dealing with father issues, male bonding and a beautiful doctor acting as his glorified beard. Replace “behind the wheel” in that last sentence with “in the cockpit” and it’s Maverick in "Top Gun". Cruise comes in to stock car racing from somewhere else, he’s a great driver but won’t listen to his pit-boss (Robert Duvall)… until he does. And then he starts winning. And the race directly after his big time win has him and Michael Rooker involved in a big time crash. Oh no! Will they race again? Of course they bloody will… well, Cruise at least. The two rivals crash, recuperate and bond. And this involves a truly ridiculous wheel-chair race. Oh, they’re so competitive they even have to race their wheel-chairs in hospital! Character revealing! Considering the team behind this, perhaps it’s really no surprise it’s very similar to "Top Gun". Why mess with success? It’s the oldest Hollywood adage – if it works once, do it again. And again. Repeat ad nauseam until the audience finds something new to entertain itself. So, we’ve established Cruise in the “Maverick” role, the young man with talent and ambition but who needs to learn humility – the hard way. And then triumph over all the odds. Robert Duvall is in the codgery replacement father figure role, the old pro who left the profession behind due to a tragedy but can’t help being brought back in. One last time. Michael Rooker is the initial rival, the 'Top Dog' that Cruise eventually bonds with after, you guessed it, a terrible accident. And we have Nicole Kidman as Cruise’s beard – the hot doctor lady he falls in love with so we don’t think he’s gay. Predictably, none of the characters have any depth and go through their proscribed motions as dictated. A quick note on the homosexual undertones in the film – they’re not as prevalent as in "Top Gun" (there’s no shirtless sweaty beach volley-ball) – but they’re most certainly there. More screen time is given to the various male bonding going on than the relationship with Kidman. True, there is no “You can be my wingman anytime” moment but Rooker does ask Cruise to drive his car in the final race. The love interest in "Top Gun" feels, strangely, more real than the one with Kidman here. The courting, if you will, is so perfunctory as to be almost unnecessary. The Cruise/Duvall relationship teeters between a pseudo father/son relationship and something more. And Cruise and Rooker bond, giggle over the table at one another and become bestest buds, like, forever. Really your interest in seeing this film was summed up in the first sentence. "Top Gun" with cars. A little bit more of a watered down version though. Whereas "Top Gun" revels in it’s excess and the sheer power of the fighter jets under their command, "Days of Thunder" seems to be less interested in, well everything. Take "Top Gun" rinse, wash, repeat. And really… fighter jets are just so much cooler.
Video
Presented in the film's original 2.35:1 theatrical ratio this film makes its debut on HD in 1080p 24/fps and has been mastered using AVC MPEG-4 compression. For a film that's just a year shy of its 20th anniversary the image is pretty damn good. There are a few problems like the occasional soft shot, sharpness is not always consistent (but pretty close) and there are some specks and dirt spots that pop up at times. Despite this the image boasts a fairly clean transfer, colors look particularly good and show a considerable improvement over the DVD. Blacks are deep and skin tones look spot on. This film takes considerable advantage of the the cinemascope ratio and the photography benefits from being mastered in HD, especially the race footage. Detail looks solid, although this is occasionally affected by some background noise. Overall there are some flaws, but for a film of its age it holds up fairly well.
Audio
Three audio tracks are included in English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mastered at 48kHz/24-bit as well as standard Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks in both French and Spanish. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its TrueHD audio track. This is an "event" film from start to finish, a true blockbuster and the sound is a reflection of that. The film's aggressive race noises come out well throughout the sound space, every aspect of the world in which these characters live in is captured in this sound mix making for an immersive experience. Additionally dialogue and ambient sounds are all solid, the music is pumping and adds to the overall atmosphere of the film. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Extras
The only extra on this disc is the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 25 seconds.
Overall
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