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THE ART OF WAR
THE ART OF WAR is a slickly made action thriller that works really well on DVD, thanks to Warner's excellent presentation. If you need an action fix that will also put your home theater system to work, you can't go wrong by checking out this DVD. |
This DVD review 
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DVD
reviews are Copyright © 2001 THE CINEMA LASER and may not be copied
or reprinted without the written consent of the publisher. |
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THE
ART OF WAR ($25) is a slick political thriller, with an action movie
bent that throws a nod to the cinematic exploits of James Bond. Wesley
Snipes stars in THE ART OF WAR as Neil Shaw, a spy working covert
operations for the United Nations. Officially, the UN doesn't have a spy
network, but these are interesting times, so UN Secretary General Douglas
Thomas (Donald Sutherland) willingly turns a blind eye to whatever operations
that his advisor Eleanor Hooks (Anne Archer) deems necessary to keep the
peace. However, during an important UN initiative devised by Thomas to
open up China to foreign trade, the Chinese ambassador is assassinated.
Shaw witnesses the assassination and is lead on a labyrinthine chase through
several buildings by the fleeing assailant. Unfortunately, Shaw loses
sight of the assassin inside one building, which results in the death
of his partner Bly (Michael Biehn). As he makes his way out of the building,
Shaw finds himself in the waiting arms of the police, who immediately
assume that he is the assassin. With no official standing within the UN,
or any American government agency, Shaw finds himself pretty much on his
own, except for the help of Julia Fang (Marie Matiko), the only eyewitness
who saw the real assassin. After a daring escape, Shaw sets out to find
the assassin who left him holding the bag. THE ART OF WAR provides
genre fans with plenty of action, chases, gunfire, explosions and solid
martial arts fighting. The story is a bit far fetched and it is kind of
easy to guess at the film's ending, but THE ART OF WAR does provide
enough entertainment value to compensate for its deficiencies. The cast
of THE ART OF WAR also includes Maury Chaykin, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa,
James Hong and Liliana Komorowska.
Warner
Home Video has done another absolutely first rate job with the DVD presentation
of THE ART OF WAR. THE ART OF WAR is properly framed at
2.35:1 and the DVD features the anamorphic enhancement for playback on
16:9 displays. Like the transfer of any big budget new movie, the DVD
delivers an image that is super sharp and beautifully detailed. Colors
are rich and fully saturated, while the flesh tones maintain a completely
natural balance. Strongly rendered primary colors stand out, yet there
are no signs of distortion or bleeding. Blacks are pure, plus the image
boasts excellent contrast and shadow detail, which shows off the film's
terrific nighttime cinematography. Digital compression artifacts are completely
tamed by solid authoring.
THE
ART OF WAR features a rock 'em,
sock 'em action mix that makes excellent use of the discrete abilities
of the Dolby Digital 5.1 channel format. Sound effects are aggressively
deployed in the forward soundstage, as well as in the split surround channels.
The viewer is made to feel enveloped in a blanket of sound that is potent
from end to end of the movie. Dialogue reproduction is clean and never
buried under that blanket of sound that I just mentioned. The bass channel
is very strong, providing all of the percussive reinforcement that the
track requires. Normand Corbeil's musical score is nicely recorded and
well mixed, maintaining its fidelity and sonic integrity throughout. Subtitles
are provided on the DVD in English. Music enhances the basic interactive
menus, which allow access to the standard scene selection and set up features,
as well as a couple of extras. A theatrical for THE ART OF WAR
is on boards, as well as trailers for other Morgan Creek titles. Cast
and crew biographies fill out the extras.
