• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
  
• Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
  
• Audio Codec: English, French, & Portuguese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit), Spanish & Thai Dolby Digital 5.1
  
• Subtitles: English, English SDH, Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Dutch, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
  
• Subtitles Color: White
  
• Region: ABC (Region-Free)
  
• Rating: R
  
• Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
• Digital Copies: UltraViolet
  
• Run Time: 100 Mins.
  
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
  
• Blu-ray Release Date: February 26, 2013
• List Price: $30.99

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Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

[Rating:3/5]

The impact of World War II on world history is such that some sixty-seven years after its end, filmmakers still feel the need to revisit the subject. Films in the genre are wide-ranging, from serious documentaries to heart wrenching dramas. Then there are the simpler kinds of films, like Company of Heroes, that dispense with any kind of wartime anxiety, nor do they bother to make these films any sort of allegory for contemporary issues. They simply want to make an action-packed, guns blazing war film with an ode to some bygone notion of patriotism and honor thrown into the mix. Don Michael Paul’s film succeeds on these counts, starting us out from the beginning in a balls-to-the-wall battle with German Panzer units and an outgunned group of U.S. soldiers behind enemy lines. Mortar blasts, tommy guns, dirt, grime, shaky camera movements and a superbly mixed soundtrack all place us in the middle of the action. Lost behind enemy lines during the Battle of the Bulge, this company of U.S. soldiers make a shocking discovery when they happen upon a dying commanding officer – Hitler is building a super bomb that will win the war in no uncertain terms for Germany. It’s now up to them to take the top secret allied mission on and head into the heart of Germany to retrieve a defecting German scientist responsible for building the super weapon.

Starring Tom Sizemore, Chad Michael Collins, Neal McDonough, Vinnie Jones, and Jürgen Prochnow, Company of Heroes hardly qualifies as the next Saving Private, Band of Brothers or even The Pacific. It lacks the character development of those works and the really intense sense of drama.  As an all out thrill ride that just never stops to take a breath, however, it works. Paul uses the banter between the characters effectively to create a realistic sense of battlefield kinship. There’s a mixture of British, Russian, and American soldiers along for the ride, and even though we get the sense they’d all like to punch each other in the face, we know they’d get each other’s backs the minute the Germans show up. Although the overuse of steadicam shots is sometimes a little disorienting, that seems to be par for the course these days with these sorts of films.

Video Quality

[Rating:4.5/5]

Shot on the Red One in high definition, Company of Heroes comes with a crisp and filmic image encoded in AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24. There’s strong contrast, close-ups yield a fine amount of detail in clothing and on skin, while the nuance in dark areas is nicely extended with only a hint of crush.

Audio Quality

[Rating:4.5/5]

The audio mix, supplied in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) and it is everything one could hope for in an audio mix for an action-intensive war film like this. The atmospherics are astounding, bullets fly through the room from every angle, explosions are thunderous, and the musical score is nicely balanced through all the channels. Lows are really deep and dialogue is clear, although during some of the battle sequences it does get just the slightest bit lost.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:2/5]

The extras are slight here. A brief “making of” is offered along with a featurette detailing the period set and costume design of the film and a deleted scene.

The supplements:

• Deleted Scene: Kestrel and Squad Meet in Safe House (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:57)
• In the Trenches: Filming Company of Heroes (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:10:28)
• Fabricating World War II (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:41)
• UltraViolet

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:3.5/5]

With Company of Heroes, those who like straightforward war movies with lots of action will be sure to find something to like here. This isn’t a subtle film examining the ramifications of World War II and all that it entailed, just a gritty romp about a group of guys out to save the world.

Additional Screen Captures

[amazon-product]B00ALCBU4M[/amazon-product]

BestBuy.com:

Purchase Company of Heroes on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

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[amazon-product]B00ALCBU4M[/amazon-product]

BestBuy.com:

Purchase Company of Heroes on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2/5]

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