THE MOVIE

This doesnt happen to often, a Stephen King book brought to the screen in a way that does the book justice. I am always hesitant to watch any film based on a Stephen King novel, as a general rule they are always, umm, how should I put it, crap.

The film is an excellent telling of the book, and unlike other King novel to film translations this one is actually worth watching. The general jist of the story line is Johnny Smith (played by Christopher Walken) is involved in a car accident. When he awakes from a coma 5 years later, his life has changed and he has lost everything he once had, but there is one thing he has gained.

Somehow Johnny has gained the ability to see others pain and tragedy in their lives via touch, be it in the future, past or present. Now Johnny has to deal with this new found power, or curse, depending on how it is looked at.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Infogrames have proved that even though they are new to the DVD business here in Region 4, they arent going to be dishing out poor quality titles. With the excellent Halloween, and now the fine effort done with Dead Zone, they have shown us that they mean business.

The video transfer given to this film is very good, with only a few minor issues letting it down. The colours are beautiful throughout the majority of the film, with only small instances of aliasing to be found, normally on fine lines such as the car grilles. This isnt too much of a distraction and is nothing to write home about. Film artifacts are kept to a minimum, but during the opening title sequence a few can be seen. Once again its not a big deal.

Audio:

We are presented with two audio tracks on this disc, one 5.1 and one 2.0. I listened to the 5.1 and briefly sampled the 2.0 track aswell. I must say that they have also done a good job with the 5.1 track.. but unfortunately the 2.0 version suffers a bit with the quality.

Audio was syncronized perfectly, and the dialogue was crisp and clear for the whole movie.

Overall just a nice sounding disc.

THE EXTRAS

This disc is very light on the extras. All we are treated to is the Theatrical Trailer. Generally im of the opinion that something is better than nothing.. but geez, a theatrical trailer isnt that exciting and not really worth the effort if thats all that is going to be put on the disc. Let the disc authors save time by not having to include it in the menus if this is all that you are going to give us.

SUMMARY

A nice movie, and probably the best Stephen King novel to film translation I have seen. The price is nice, the film is nice, the only disappointing thing is the lack of extras. Fans of this type of film definately will not be disappointed.