Morning Light (Disney Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture: B/C+
Sound: B/C+ Extras: C+ Documentary: C+
Phony “reality TV” has killed so much in the media and
when a decent tale to tell comes along and is told in that style and the
lighter approach one too many IMAX shorts have told science in, you get Mark
Monroe’s Morning Light, about the
title sloop boat/ship in a race to win the race known as the Transpac. Everyone has something to say, has comments
to make later and because this is Disney, get along better than if they were on
MTV, where people might kill each other, but don’t because the show would be
cancelled and effect the bottom line.
Running 98 minutes, this is really stretching things out a
bit and is just about everything we have seen before, even if the people are
actually likable for a change, but in the end, this could have been much
shorter or the makers could have tried a new angle and new ideas in telling
such a story. Instead, Roy Disney is
brought up in the beginning, as if that will offset clichés and they go from
there. It is worth a look if you are
interested or the ocean and racing are of interest to you, but others should be
wide awake before trying to sit through this in either format.
The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image has its
moments, especially with it footage of the seas and events, but other times, it
is not as impressive, looks like the same editing as so many other such
programs and has some motion blur.
Still, it is a nice improvement over the DVD, which is even softer and
has less detail than the Blu-ray. The
DTS-HD Master Audio (MA) lossless 48/24 5.1 mix is about as good as this is
going to sound, with location audio, music and too much voiceover narration
(sometimes sounding too forward) going on here.
The Dolby Digital French 5.1 on the Blu-ray and English version on the
DVD sound weaker and not as warm, so the DTS barely gets the grade it
gets. Extras include two making of
featurettes, with the DVD promoting the Blu-ray version in its own “exclusive”
extra.
- Nicholas Sheffo
