- Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
- Rating: PG-13
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD+ Digital Copy)
- Studio: Lionsgate
- Blu-ray Release Date: March 8, 2011
- List Price: $39.99
[amazon-product align=”right”]B003L20IGA[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase The Next Three Days on Blu-ray+DVD+ Digital Copy Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
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:2.5/5]
Paul Haggis, the writer/director who brought us the interestingly non-linear film Crash, wrote and produced this middling, French-imported thriller starring Russell Crowe. An overly long and sometimes laborious film that is a bit too much of a stretch for the imagination, The Next Three Days revolves around a college professor (Crowe) who gets in touch with his dark side and hatches a scheme to break his wife (Elizabeth Banks) after she is apparently wrongfully convicted for murdering her boss.
Also with appearances by Liam Neeson, Brian Dennehy and Olivia Wilde, The Next Three Days lacks a sufficient amount of mystery to add to the story’s suspense and drags on far too long to maintain the film’s rather unlikely scenario. Still, the story mostly holds up, at least until the ending where it really begins to fall apart.
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
The Next Three Days’ AVC/MPEG-4 encodement offers a strong film-like appearance with a sharp, tight grain structure, inky black levels and rich midtones. Details are nicely extended well into backgrounds with only some occasional softness apparent here and there, but that is not necessarily a fault of the transfer.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Lionsgate is one of the only studios that consistently offers 7.1 mixes on their Blu-ray releases, even if the film itself doesn’t necessarily warrant it. The Next Three Days is given a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless mix. It doesn’t really take full advantage of those additional back channels, but in some of the more active sequences the sound is rather engulfing, even if there isn’t much discrete activity in the back surround speakers. Dialogue is clean and high frequencies are smooth. Low frequencies are deep and tight, extending down to around the upper low range.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
All the video extras are offered up in Full HD 1080p and allow more looks at the film’s stars and creators.
The supplements provided with this release are:
- Filmmakers’ Commentary
- Making The Next Three Days (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 0:18.31) – This making of feaurette is brief but offers lots of behind-the-scenes glimpses of the stars and filmmakers in action.
- The Men of The Next Three Days (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 0:06.47)
- True Escapes for Love (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 0:07.38) – This featurette takes a look at real life “prison break” stories for love.
- Cast Moments (2.40:1; 1080p/24; 0:02.25) – Blooper reel
- Deleted Scenes (2.40:1; 1080p/24) – Individually selectable scenes deleted from the final cut of The Next Three Days.
- Extended Scenes (2.40:1; 1080p/24) – Individually selectable extended scenes from the film.
- DVD
- Digital Copy – For Mac/PC and iTunes/Windows Media-Compatible portable devices.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
This Blu-ray release definitely offers some really strong home theatre entertainment, but that can’t make up for the disappointing quality of the film itself. The Next Three Days can only work as a rental, but nothing more.
Additional Screen Captures:
[amazon-product align=”right”]B003L20IGA[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase The Next Three Days on Blu-ray+DVD+ Digital Copy Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:2.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
