Triangle – Blu-ray Disc Review

January 27, 2010 – 8:37 PM - Posted by: Danielle Byington

Tags: Christopher Smith, Emma Lung, First Look, First Look Studios, Henry Nixon, Liam Hemsworth, Melissa George, Michael Dorman, Panavision Genesis HD, Rachael Caprani

has an average rating of 6.6 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 25gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
are bare minimal and not worthwhile
–
– 2009
– 98 minutes
– First Look Studios
–
This uses 20.6GB for the movie out of 21.4GB total.
Street Date: February 2nd, 2010

Overall Verdict – Worth A Rental

Buy it for $14.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review by: Danielle Byington & Justin Sluss —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself was Directed by Christopher Smith, known for two other previous independent films “Creep” and “Severance“.

The movie revolves around Jess (Melissa George), a single mother with an autistic son. We see her briefly going about the hassles of daily chores at her home through, and dealing with the typical frustrations of parenthood. Moving along, it is apparent that Jess has plans to get away from these things for an afternoon as we see her arrive at a dock for a few hours of sailing off the coast of Miami on a friend’s boat named, The Triangle. Ignoring most of the on-boat drama between a couple of the passengers, Jess attempts to simply take in the beauty of the ocean setting, and let go of her worries. However, this is just not intended to happen as the winds abruptly stop, and an eerie calm surrounds the waters. This silence is broken quickly by a sudden approaching storm, which violently throws The Triangle about. As quickly as it happened, the storm soon ends, leaving the remaining passengers stranded atop the upside-down floating remains of the boat.

Beginning to see this situation as hopeless, the mood is turned around as a large cruise ship appears to be heading in the survivors’ direction. The large ship gently passes right by the stranded sail boat, and Jess and the remaining passengers gingerly climb aboard through a side staircase. The nature within this ship’s amenities is both luxurious, yet empty, as despite the size of the luxury liner there is no sign of other passengers or even a crew; though there are fresh appetizers awaiting the stranded passengers of The Triangle in the dining area. The group of friends begin to wonder the cabin halls, still find no other passengers, yet Jess finds her own keyring lying in the hallways, which is of course very odd, considering she has never been aboard this 1930′s cruise ship. An ominous feeling of un-ease fulfills Jess, and she is about to find herself in a radically unexplainable scenario that literally works against time.

In closing, “Triangle” could best be described as if Richard Kelly re-made “The Shining” on a boat. The strongest qualities of this film seem to show an influence that reflects that statement, with its use of themes revolving around the relevance of time/quantum physics, and the visuals of the set design creating a feeling of hopelessly being trapped within what is basically a mind-f*** of a floating hotel. The film does hold an intriguing spark with the directions it takes, and with an unusual spin on its finale, it does offer a cluster of afterthoughts and reflections; however, general audiences may dislike that this film requires you to think, rather than just give you an ending full of answers. Yet on that note, there is a great deal left unanswered within this movie, and though it is a nice attempt of a time-relevance themed thriller/sci-fi flick, maybe even the writers got lost in the looping plot and rushed a final product. Overall, the movie’s subject material is atleast interesting, just perhaps not executed in the best fashion on-screen, receiving a “3 Star Rating“.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The film, according to IMDb‘s technical specifications for the aspect ratio was shot digitally in Hi-Def using the Panavision HD camera. Aside from the Red One camera, this is one of my favorite cameras out there and usually produces some excellent Hi-Def visual presentations based on previous films shot on the Genesis. This film is not a complete exception but it is not one of the best films shot on the camera visually. It does deliver a pretty much solid presentation though, with an almost solid black level, somewhat accurate fleshtones with honestly a dull at times subdued color palette, but with the occasional vibrant color in some of the opening title shots and of course the shots of the ocean and such.

Definition varies from scene to scene, with a smoother look visible within the interior shots on the cruise ship, and yet very impressive detail captured in some of the exterior shots under much brighter lighting conditions. Also keep in mind that a decent amount of CG was used in this film as well, most of which translates pretty well in Hi-Def, especially considering this was pulled off by an independent studio. Overall, the video quality here fluctuates from a crisp and cleaner picture, to some lesser than shots, all in all landing itself with a “4 Star Rating“.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. The audio track that accompanies this thriller flick definitely wants you to know that it is there, as it borderlines over-kill throughout even seemingly quiet moments in the story’s content. It is actually almost difficult to decide where to begin in discussion of what sort of flips and cartwheels the 5.1 setup performs, and this is a rather flattering statement aimed towards the independent First Look Studios, because you really do not get an impressive sound design all to often on these smaller title independent films. One of the first intense scenes providing an uproar from the soundscape follows along with the sudden storm at sea in which the violence of the ocean conveys its most realistic rush of aggressive waves, wind, rain, and thunder to the front and rear channels, with a robust presence of bass as well. Speaking of the subwoofer usage of this film, it is as though it is nearly constant, which is the primary factor that may lead audiences to feel that the audio track was overdoing it. Something you should keep in mind however, is that much of this rumbling bass presence that occurs during scenes in which it may seem unnecessary is coming from the long drawn-out rolling from the subwoofer which is the audio track’s representation of being on a luxury liner from the 1930′s. On that note, this deep LFE performance is not totally smooth, and does have a slight issue in its presentation, and it is the primary factor that does tend to go overboard at times.

Other subjects of the release’s audio track prove to do rather well in the 5.1 setup, with an occasional disoriented swirl of panning movement of the sound conveying the time-trapped content of the film appropriately, providing front channel presence, and well as moderate rear channel presence. Dialogue translate well, coming form primarily the front center channel, and does not suffer any issues of being taken-over by the other elements within the audio performance. Overall, the audio track on this release does prove to give its all, and it certainly is worthy of its “4 Star Rating“, and could have reached a higher rating in fact with just some small refining.

Bonus materials are presented in Standard Definition video with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound.

• “Cast & Crew Interviews” (5:59) is your basic rundown interview with obviously the cast and crew, as they discuss their own personal opinions of the film, and experiences during the production.

Overall, the bonus materials are definitely the bare minimum in terms of supplemental material with only one featurette in total that doesn’t even have more than a 10 minute runtime total. Fans who enjoyed the film will be only semi-satisfied here with bonus content.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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