One of Walt Disney’s masterpieces has arrived on Blu-ray in a gorgeous MPEG-4 AVC 1080p transfer. The restoration has removed all damage that may have plagued the nearly 70 year old film. The picture literally looks like you are watching the planes moving past you in the multiplane camera. The various planes have never had such delineation in a home entertainment release. These restorations elicit a lot of debate on whether they look too good, because when the cels were filmed originally, the artists knew how they would look when put to film and compensated for that and made cheats knowing it. This particular presentation finds a nice balance between its film origins and high-def digital presentations of the source artwork. The only complaint I have is that black level seemed off at times. Otherwise, the picture is nearly flawless. The beautiful forest paintings pop with vibrant greens and browns. There isn’t a hint of any digital distortion or compression anywhere.

The audio is presented in both DTS-HD HR 7.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. As with any film of the era, the transfer is only as good as the source. The distribution of the original sound effects and score across the soundscape in admirable. The rear speakers provide a nice dose of ambience in the forest. During the epic fire, the track shines its best, using the bass effectively. Highs and lows are boxy, but the dialogue is crisp.

So if you're one of nine superpowered aliens from a destroyed world hiding out on Earth when the creatures that wiped out your kind are in hot pursuit, what do you do? If you're John Smith in this film, you stop to develop a roll of film with your Earthling girlfriend. You really can't make this stuff up.

John Smith is played by the up-and-coming hunk Alex Pettyfer (BEASTLY). He is an alien hiding out on Earth with his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant, TV's JUSTIFIED), who poses as his father. The evil Mogadorians are hunting the nine superpowered aliens in numerical order. The numbering system is never explained. Number 3 has just been killed and John is Number 4.

This is one first rate Blu-ray. The MPEG-4 AVC 1080p picture captures Tony Scott's unique visual style wonderfully. The deeply saturated colors just pop. The red of the runaway train. The blue of the "good" locomotive. The yellow of Will's jacket. The inky blacks that dominated the highly contrasted image. Details are rich in closeups where pores stand out to wide shots where the fall foliage is defined even when the camera is racing by. Grain levels are not consistent, but I chalked that up to the varying cameras used. To find anything like aliasing or shaky edge definition, one has to be looking for it.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is one to show off the sound system with. The LFE track shakes the floor, literally, as the trains roar by. The directionality is perfect as trains, helicopters and trucks race across the entire entire soundscape. In the midst of the chaos, the dialogue is always crisp. There is a reason this film was nominated for an Oscar for Sound Editing.

The best compliment I can pay Tony Scott's film is that it's SPEED on a train. Once the runaway train starts rolling the suspense just keeps climbing to the very end. This is one of Scott's best films for its craftsmanship alone.

Trainer conductor Dewey (Ethan Suplee, MALLRATS) leaves his train thinking the breaks are on, but he was wrong. His expression as the train starts down the track without him tells it all. The nearly half mile long train is in full throttle racing away at over 70 miles per hour headed toward heavily populated areas. Its cargo is highly toxic.

We are told right from the start that this is inspired by a true story. But we quickly discover that it's not inspired by true characters. It's not surprising that a survival film like this would be populated with stock characters, but there is nothing surprising about anything that happens with them. The filmmakers wanted to make an underwater cave story and that is the only part he gets right.

Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh, MOULIN ROGUE!) is the best cave explorer in the world. He's a cold, no-nonsense taskmaster. His son Josh (Rhys Wakefield, TV's HOME AND AWAY) hates him for it and slacks off on his responsibilities at the latest expedition into a massive cave system that stretches miles into the Earth. The billionaire funder/adventurer Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd, FANTASTIC FOUR) arrives to check out the latest discoveries. He has brought his new girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE), who he met on a climb of Everest. While down in the cave, a freak storm hits and quickly begins to flood the caverns. The crew must follow the water down and hopefully discover its exit to the sea in order to survive.

Director Mark Romanek's haunting aesthetic and Adam Kimmel's gorgeous cinematography is masterfully brought to Blu-ray. The muted color palette is brought forth in a crisp image that finds a right balance between film grain and bold detail. The greens of the Hailsham Boarding School yard are deep, while keeping inline with natural look of the entire film. There is some noise in low-lit scenes, notably an early one where Carey Mulligan stands in an observation room at a hospital, but these moments are fleeting.

The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is respectful for the quiet film. Good for a dialogue oriented production, the voices are clear throughout. Volume of the dialogue, music and sound effects is mixed well. The soundscape however relies on the front speaker predominantly.

The special features are limited. The making of doc, "The Secrets of Never Let Me Go," talks with the filmmakers and actors about their approach to the metaphoric sci-fi material. Considering there is no commentary track on the disc, this is all we get and it's a pretty solid 30-minute look into the film's production. The doc lays out how the project came together; it's funny how serendipity plays a role sometimes. Then it moves into the artistic choices for bringing the beautiful, but sad tale to the screen. There is also still galleries of Romanek's on-set photos, the Tommy character's artwork, as well as the theatrical trailer.

Read my review of SECRETARIAT.

Disney's transfer of their latest inspirational sports movie isn't an inspiration, but nowhere near a loser either. The 1080p Blu-ray has a running issue with softness and noise. In darker lit scenes, the picture ranges from muddy to fuzzy. These same scenes don't have the same lush color palette as the rest of the disc. But like its namesake, the disc excels where it needs to -- the race scenes are gorgeous. Details are crisp and the colors are luscious. Even the lower grade cameras used for the horse mounted shots look great.

The disc really makes good its potential with its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. The sounds of the horses racing washes over the soundscape and puts the viewer in the race. The LFE track is used so effectively in this instance to create a real sense of the power of these animals. Likewise, ambiance is nicely done in crowd scenes, putting us in the middle of the enthusiastic fans. Directionality is quite immersive. Voices and sound effects come from the speakers as if we are sitting in the camera's seat.

It's hard to not think of the Oscar-nominated SEABISCUIT when thinking about this film. The comparison doesn't help this film about the 1970s Triple Crown winner. It has less ambition than the film about the Depression era underdog. But it does fit nicely into the canon of Disney's inspirational sports films.

Penny Chenery (Diane Lane, THE PERFECT STORM) was a housewife before inheriting the  horse farm of her father Chris (Scott Glenn, THE RIGHT STUFF). She was determined to honor her dad's legacy by racing their latest filly to the Triple Crown. Going against the wishes of her husband Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh, TV's NIP/TUCK) and brother Hollis (Dylan Baker, HAPPINESS), she risked everything on Secretariat, a horse that critics didn't think had the stamina to win the longer races.

One of the reasons why recent superhero flicks have succeeded where BATMAN & ROBIN failed is because they played the material straight and avoided too many post-modern flashes. Now we get a new superhero adaptation that attempts to find the balance between post-modern and a straight superhero story. Diehard Green Hornet purists might find the film too juvenile, but the character seems the right one for this kind of treatment.

Britt Reid (Seth Rogen, FUNNY PEOPLE) is a party boy, living off the millions of his father James (Tom Wilkinson, MICHAEL CLAYTON), the owner and editor-in-chief of The Daily Sentinel. Their relationship isn't warm; James has always been very hard on his son. But when James suddenly dies, Britt inherits the paper. He meets his father's mechanic Kato (Jay Chou, CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER), a brilliant inventor and martial arts master. He agrees with Britt that his father was a jerk, so they go out to steal the head off James' statue and in the process thwart a mugging. This spurs Britt to decide they need to become superheroes, but make everyone believe their criminals in order to keep the bad guys guessing.

This animated feature from Sylvain Chomet, the director of THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, is an unsettling experience. To understand why I say this there is some background that must be known. It is based on an unfilmed script from famed comedian Jacques Tati animated in the French icon’s style. When I think of Tati, I think of the charming Mr. Hulot, a hapless Buster Keaton-like everyman. I think of sly humor in a light comedy. The sly humor is there, but there is nothing light about it.

Known to us only as The Illusionist (Jean-Claude Donda, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE), the main character is a vaudeville magician trying to continue performing his art well into the 1960s. Rock ‘n roll has replaced his kind of entertainment in the minds of the people. He gets a gig at a bar in a way off village where he meets the young maid Alice (Eilidh Rankin), who is captivated with his magic. He sees that the poor girl’s shoes are much worn, so he kindly buys her a new pair. When he leaves, she follows him back to Edinburgh. So what is this man supposed to do with this girl?