This digitally mastered widescreen edition of 'The Rock' comes courtesy to you from Disney Home Video. This movie was one of the first batch of DVD's to be released by Disney. Simply stated if this is the film transfer quality that we will come to expect from Disney then I must say we are in for a pleasant surprise, the transfer is spot on.

This 1996 release is the story of when a vengeful American marine General HUMMEL (Ed Harris - Apollo 13) decides to seize control of Alcatraz Island and who then threatens to launch an arsenal of deadly poisonous VX gas into the San Fransican atmosphere if his demands are not met. In the meantime he secures over eighty hostages to assist him in achieving this aim. To the rescue teams the FBI chemical specialist Stanley Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage - Con Air, Leaving Las Vegas) and now Federal Prisoner ex-British Army Intelligence agent John Mason (Sean Connery - The Presidio) who join forces and infiltrate Alcatraz in order to try and defeat HUMMEL and his elite team of marines.

From start to finish this is a great action movie with some incredible underground sequences, this could have been a transfer nightmare with the majority of the movie being shot in low lit and smoky scenes. But the transfer shines through with excellent blacks and no visible artifacts at all. I think anyway that you really need a sharp eye these days when viewing most DVD movies to pick out many flaws in the compression process and if you spend all your time trying to spot them you're not really going to enjoy the movie, are you. That being said the letterboxed picture (2.35:1) which unfortunately for those who own 16:9 monitors does not come anamorphically enhanced is extra sharp and clean, shows true flesh tones and the colour saturation again is excellent. The DVD also contains the original theatrical trailer.

The audiotrack is presented with both Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby surround and as you would expect from a top action movie is full of explosions, gun fire, rockets and other big booming sounds which will really give your system a pleasant work out. The high speed chase scene where Cage chases Connery down the steep hills of San Fransico will more than demonstrate what I am talking about. The accompanying musical soundtrack from Hans Zimmer and Nick Glennie-Smith is also first rate and really adds to the edge of your seat suspense of this movie.

Overall this is a must for the DVD Home Theatre library. Recommended.

Features: Letterbox, AC-3 Languages: English, French. Subtitles: Spanish Region Code: 1