I have a large DVD/Blu-ray collection. My last count came up to about 300 titles. While going through and re-organizing my collection I decided to take a look at a random selection in this (hopefully) continuous series.
Pulled from the shelf:
Air Force One (1997)
Film: The blueprint of Die Hard has been reused in countless of action movies in the 90s. There was Die Hard on a bus (Speed), Die Hard on a boat (Under Siege), Die Hard on a train (Under Siege 2), and Die Hard at a hockey game (Sudden Death). Of course, none of them could really top the original Bruce Willis action classic, although some have come close, like the 1997 Wolfgang Peterson-directed Harrison Ford vehicle Air Force One.
In case you don’t know the plot, Ford plays the President and takes on the John McClane role, as Russian terrorists take over his plane. Ford’s hard-edged POTUS wastes no time in eliminating the threat one by one, punching, shooting, and choking to death several Russians. He’s perfect as the Commander-in-Chief, who’s got enough background in ass-kicking to make the ridiculous plot at least somewhat believable. He also adds a movie catchphrase to the movie lexicon: “Get off my plane!” Meanwhile, in the lead bad guy role is the craziest most reliable bad guy actor around, Gary Oldman. And here he’s at his evilest playing the lead Russian baddie. The rest of the cast is great, with supporting roles going to Glenn Close, William H. Macy, and Dean Stockwell. So it never really feels like a dumb action movie, when there are thespians like Xander Berkeley on screen.
The action is top-notch. The movie has enough fistfights and explosions to make an action movie aficionado happy. IF you ever wanted to see a fuel jet explode furious magnitude then this is your movie. As Die Hard ‘rip offs’ go it’s one of the best.
* * * out of 4
Extras: None. It is a Superbit DVD and the thing about the now defunct Sony line of DVDs is that fact that it utilized every single bit rate for the sake of its video and audio. That means no special features. Would I have liked to listen to director Peterson’s commentary track that was released on the first standard DVD? Yeah. But the track was dropped in favor of upping the film’s bit rate. The Blu-ray that was release last year does add the commentary, but that’s the only extra on that particular release. It looks like we’ll never be treated to some good behind the scenes documentaries chronicling the making of the film, which is a shame.
Audio/Video: The Superbit line of DVDs prides itself on producing the best DVD quality and it delivers here. The audio is reference quality (explosions!). It’s a good job for a DVD release. Although, grain and dirt are prevalent on the image, so I’m interested to see if the Blu-ray version drastically improves the image.
Overall: Buy It On Sale. I’ll be holding on to it until I pick up the Blu-ray version.
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