- Aspect Ratio: 2:40:1
- Video Codec: AVC MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
- Region: ABC (Region-Free)
- Rating: PG-13
- Run Time: 90 Mins.
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
- Blu-ray Release Date: May 22nd, 2012
- List Price: $24.99
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Overall
[Rating:2.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
When 7 year-old Amy (Dharbi Jens) is kidnapped from her Anchorage, Alaska bedroom, her parents Sarah (Teri Polo) and Gavin (Brett Baker) reach out to Sarah’s brother (Dermot Mulroney), the chief of police. He enlists the help of a man known as John Koski (Jon Voight), someone who has a reputation for abduction cases. His success rate not only speaks for itself, but also how to treat the kidnappers. The case soon takes an odd turn when John finds himself paired up with TV psychic Farley Connors (Julian Morris). Clearly skeptical for good reasons, John now must put it all aside in hopes of rescuing Amy. What results is a run-of-the-mill thriller that is only elevated by the consistently great Jon Voight.
Let’s be honest here, the filmmakers behind Beyond must have known that they didn’t have anything truly groundbreaking on their plate. The film itself is nothing great, the plot is fairly basic and the action/thriller elements are very cheap, typically not even tense. Regardless of the actual film itself, Director Rusnak enlisting actor Jon Voight was a smart move. Without Voight, Beyond would be a forgotten film, one that would end up in the bargain bin from day one. Voight, similar to a majority of his roles, injects a style, a kind of element that glues you to his performance. While his acting isn’t some of his finest (I still think Heat is one of his finest roles), he does elevate the film from a complete skip to a worthy rental on a dreary, cold, rainy day like it is today in Massachusetts.
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
The film’s 2:40:1 framed, AVC MPEG-4 encoded, transfer is generally solid. The film’s color palette features a mostly subdued, kind of grayed out transfer. Darker colors like dark grays, midnight blues dominate this transfer. One thing to note is that even though the palette is quite dark at times, detail is never lost. Whether close-ups of faces or clothing, everything reveals an impressive amount of detail. The the image does feel a bit bland at times, but perhaps this is more due to the film’s Alaskan setting. Either way, minus that, this is a fine effort from Anchor Bay.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
The film arrives with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, which is a tad below the aforementioned video. Dialogue is well reproduced throughout, via the center channel. Atmosphere is quite solid thanks in part to the film’s score, which also provides us with deep, booming LFE. Discrete effects, like that of gunshots, bounce from left rear to right rear giving us a nice sense of ‘being there’. Pans between the rear are also invisible adding to the general spacing of the mix. All in all, this is a mix that suits the film well, but is nothing extremely impressive.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
There are no features included on this release.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:2.5/5]
While Beyond as a film didn’t do anything for me, Jon Voight’s performance kept the film from being a total disappointment. Anchor Bay’s Blu-ray does feature solid video and audio, but no features. I’d say give this one a rental to check out Voight’s performance.
Additional Screen Captures
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Overall
[Rating:2.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0/5]
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