- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS 5.1, German DTS 5.1, Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0, Italian DTS 5.1, Portuguese DTS 5.1, Spanish (Castilian) DTS 5.1, Spanish (Latin American) DTS 5.1, Thai Dolby Digital 2.0
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Spanish (Latin American) Finnish, German, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Russian, Castilian Spanish, Swedish, Estonian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Cantonese, Hungarian, Indonesian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Thai, Slovenian
- Region: A
- Rating: R
- Discs: 2
- Studio: MGM
- Blu-ray Release Date: April 6, 2010
- List Price: $24.99
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Best Buy:
Purchase The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
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]
In 1999, Pierce Brosnan took time off from his duties as 007 to star in this remake of the 1968 film, The Thomas Crown Affair. It’s a tepid romantic thriller involving playboy billionaire and art thief Thomas Crown (Brosnan) with a taste for adventure and the sexy insurance fraud investigator Catherine Banning (Rene Russo) sent to investigate a stolen painting, and the prime suspect — Crown.
The two become entangled in a cat and mouse game of hide the Monet as they become sexually involved throughout the course of Banning’s investigation. This is supposed to be hot, sexy, intriguing stuff, but the temperature in The Thomas Crown Affair never rises above a lukewarm, even if Russo is quite the minx.
The mystery in The Thomas Crown Affair is not about whether Crown actually stole the painting — we already know that from the beginning — it’s about how or when Banning, or anyone, can get Crown to reveal himself and where the painting is. The plot wears thin within the first 30-minutes or so.
There is an ongoing debate over whether this remake or the original Steve McQueen film is the superior. I have a preference for neither, in all honesty. The best I can give you is a recommendation to view both and see which one is least likely to put you to sleep. I do have an overall preference for more Steve McQueen films than I do for the awful run of Brosnan James Bond films, so maybe that’s saying something.
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
The 2.35:1 AVC/MPEG-4 1080p encoding for The Thomas Crown Affair is not going to set the world afire, that’s for sure, but it’s not awful either. It is at times bent towards the soft side and flesh tones seem a little pushed toward red, but for the most part it is clean and shows a decent amount of foreground detail. Backgrounds tend toward murkiness and black levels are a bit unstable, showing some crush, but sometimes graying out. I also notice just a slight bit of flutter
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) soundtrack provided on The Thomas Crown Affair is hardly a showcase for those looking to show off their surround systems, but it surely provides enough engagement and believability to offer quite a bit of enjoyment for this film. The surrounds are adequately used for audibly atmospheric effects, the dialogue is clear and everything is easy on the ears. Low frequencies are very much extended, but they are good enough for this film’s laid back, more dialogue-driven feel.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1/5]
Unless you count the standard DVD flipper disc included in this set with a widescreen version on one side and full screen on the other, there are no supplements in this barebones release of The Thomas Crown Affair.
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
The Thomas Crown Affair on Blu-ray is too barebones and far too lackluster a film in general for me to recommend it as an outright purchase to anyone. I have to say to anyone interested in this release to at least rent it first before going all out on a purchase.
Additional Screen Captures:
Best Buy:
Purchase The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
