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Straight Up: Helicopters in Action
2002
An IMAX release for the Smithsonian Institute National Air & Space Museum
BD
Finally releasing this title on the format it deserves Straight Up is the Smithsonian's ode to helicopters and their many roles in modern society. Martin Sheen narrates the film that offers up IMAX-level views of helicopters doing their thing: Life-flighting someone off a mountain, dropping off and extracting Marines, saving victims at sea, or the less dramatic uses such as delivering food in remote areas of Sierra Leone and helping conversation of the African black rhino in West Africa.
The short (:34 min.) film uses some recreations - such as with drug runners in the Caribbean - to show these vehicles' capabilities. In other scenes the filmmaking crew tags along and records the actions of, for example, a tall powerline technician getting dropped off at work. This variety helps keep the tone light and moving along while also allowing for some sweeping panoramas from the helicopter's point of view.
The film starts with some basic history of the vehicle, moving from the autogyro to the whirlybird and on to different types of helicopters. And after providing some basic aerodynamic information the remainder of the film is safe propaganda.
Audio/Video
The IMAX release gets to fill up the 16x9 widescreen format nicely and the transfer is pretty solid. I only noticed a couple of hairs and scratches, too. The available audio is Dolby Digital "True HD" 5.1 and the only available subtitles are in English as well. The soundtrack thunders and roars nicely in accompaniment to the various action scenes on-screen. It won't push your surround system to its limits by any means but it's very supportive of the subject matter at hand.
Extras
Director David Douglas provides commentary on the only other audio track available on the disc. He's mostly anecdotal, providing nerdier details on the cameras and mounts used to get particular shots and how weather conditions played a big factor in the making of the film. His input here is very similar to the included Taking Off: Behind the Scenes of Straight Up: Helicopters in Action short that also interviews the film copter pilot and the film's producers for some additional information. The best thing about this extra is that it underscores the extraordinary ability of the helicopter pilots they filmed and all involved are simply in awe of them.
The remaining extras are the “career day†infomercial Careers In Action which features interviews of Customs agents, Marines, Coast Guard, and electrical technicians shown in the movie and then the HD version of the film's trailer.
Summary
If you like short, non-taxing documentaries about the various uses of helicopters then I suppose this is your film. I'd have preferred if they'd talked more with the pilots that have to manage in these various circumstances and let them geek out on the vehicles but maybe that's just me.
