- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
- Rating: R
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD)
- Studio: Lionsgate
- Blu-ray Release Date: January 18, 2011
- List Price: $29.95
[amazon-product align=”right”]B003L20IFQ[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Buried on Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1/5]
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)
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés tackles both psychological drama and the corporate war machine in this odd thriller starring Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal, X-Men: Origins) as an American civilian truck driver in Iraq who has just had his convoy attacked by insurgents and been buried alive in a wooden coffin with nothing but a cell phone and a lighter. He has 90 minutes to save his own life, that of his family back home and to somehow help the elite military searching for him to find his location.
On the surface, the unique setup of Buried makes for an interesting study, but in the wrong hands it could all go awry in a hurry. Reynolds shows his weakness as an actor here, never really being convincingly terrified, angry, or sad. Everything with him is all at the surface, but thankfully Cortés direction keeps the film interesting at most turns, even when the material begins to where a bit thin to sustain this one-man-drama-in-box over the course of its entire 90 minutes.
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Without much to see in Buried, the look of the film is heavily reliant on the cinematographer, perhaps even more than usual. Despite its lack of scenery and extreme low light conditions, Buried’s AVC/MPEG-4 1080p encoding has a lot of detail to offer up in its purposely gritty presentation. It’s sharply grainy, but hardly intrusive, one can make out the individual strands of stubble on Reynold’s face without issue, and there are no compression artifacts. The low light lends itself to problems with crush, but since the blacks in the film are not extremely inky and more greyish, this never becomes a very big problem.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
At first it seemed rather odd choice to supply a film set entirely in a box buried underground with a 7.1 mix, but from the very opening scene with Ryan Reynolds’ first struggles to get out, the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack is eerily effective at capturing the claustrophobic sound of the surroundings. Some discrete information is passed through the surround and back channels, but it is mostly a dry ambience that captures the tight quarters. There are a few moments, courtesy of the score, where the sound is allowed to “breathe” and takes on a bigger, wetter sound.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1/5]
The supplements are decidedly weak on Buried, consisting simply of a making of featurette and two trailers along with the standard definition DVD to help round out the package.:
- Unearthing Buried (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:17.59)
- Teaser Trailer (1.78:1; 1080p/24; Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Theatrical Trailer (1.78:1; 1080p/24; Dolby Digital 5.1)
- DVD
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
Buried is one of those unique concepts of a film that comes along only so often. That it is being released by a major studio makes it all the more unusual. It would have been great to see a film like this with a stronger actor in the lead, but Reynolds is just good enough to fill the space for director Rodrigo Cortés’ well informed lens. The Blu-ray release captures the claustrophobic proceedings nicely with a solid 1080p transfer and an engaging 7.1 lossless soundtrack.
Additional Screen Captures:
[amazon-product align=”right”]B003L20IFQ[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Buried on Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1/5]
