Tweet
Released by: Universal
Released on: 12/29/2009
Director: David Twohy
Cast: Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Kiele Sanchez
Year: 2009
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
From writer/director David Twohy, best known as the man who gave us Pitch Black and The Chronicles Of Riddick, comes A Perfect Getaway, a remarkably unremarkable film that benefits from a decent cast and some really nice locations. While the title of the film itself, a double entendre if ever there was one, is a massive spoiler, the picture has got a few interesting twists that makes it perfectly watchable, even if you won't likely give it much thought once the end credits start rolling.
Cliff (Steve Zahn) and his beautiful bride Cydney (Milla Jovavich) have just arrived in Hawaii where they plan to hike out to a remote beach to enjoy a little privacy on their honeymoon. After an incident with a grumpy hitchhiking couple that almost ends poorly, they park their rented jeep and head into the brush to find the path that'll take them where they want to go. They set out on foot and soon meet up with another couple, Nick (Timothy Olyphant) and Gina (Kiele Sanchez). They hit it off and start hiking together despite some initial hesitation on the part of Cliff which Cydney helps him overcome.
As the couples get to know one another we learn that Cliff is a burgeoning screenwriter and that Nick has just recently gotten out of the service and would love nothing more than to see a movie made about his life. And then they learn that there's supposedly a killer in the area and begin to increasingly distrust one another…
While the film is a bit on the predictable side, a few of the twists work well and what the film is quite good at is building tension. It starts off pretty slowly, letting us get to know Cliff and Cydney as they prepare for their trip by getting the necessary permits and taking care of other mundane, everyday tasks and it isn't really until they meet up with the other couple that the movie starts to pick up steam. Once it does, there is some good back and forth between all four of the principal players, particularly between Zahn and Olyphant, both of whom are pretty good in their respective parts, even if Olyphant does border on overdoing it once or twice.
The Hawaiian locations look nice and provide an interesting backdrop for the tension to rise against and the movie is well shot, well edited and just generally well put together. By the time it's all said and done, however, it's just not all that memorable. As an hour and a half worth of decent entertainment A Perfect Getaway works reasonably well and there are certainly worse ways to kill ninety minutes but there isn't enough here to give the viewer anything to take home. There's no lasting impact here, and while it's an enjoyable enough and moderately suspenseful thriller, it's not one that'll leave you talking about it, in fact, you'll probably walk away from it feeling it was pretty disposable. The Blu-ray contains the ninety-eight minute theatrical cut of the film and the one hundred and eight minute director's cut of the film on the same disc.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Universal presents the film in a nice 2.35.1 AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer, preserving the film's theatrical aspect ratio, but which falls a few steps shot of the HD clarity format junkies are probably expecting to see in a film set in Hawaii. The movie appears to have had some color tinkering done to it, resulting in a fairly hot look that bleaches out some of the locations gorgeous colors and natural scenery. Close up shots have a lot more detail than medium and distance shots do, but even these are sporadic in terms of detail. Some shots look great, nice and gritty and realistic, others are a bit soft. The result is some rather inconsistent picture quality where it probably should have been amazing given that Hawaii is so damned beautiful a place.
The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track on this disc is fine, if not reference quality. The score sounds good here, spread out nicely across the soundstage but rarely pushing right out of your speakers the way a good HD audio mix can. That said, there's nothing wrong with anything here. Dialogue is always easy to follow and there are no audible problems. It's just that it never really impresses the way you want it to, even during the more action intensive scenes. There's a bit with a helicopter towards the end that revs up the subwoofer nicely but bass response, while audible and present, is never all that powerful. It's not a bad mix by any stretch, but it's also far from the best that the format has to offer. Optional subtitles are provided in English SDH, French and Spanish while standard definition DTS 5.1 tracks are offered up in French and Spanish.
The Blu-ray release includes the theatrical cut and the director's cut of the film, and an alternate ending… and that's it. The alternative ending is in HD, which is nice, but really, if you watch the movie you'll know that there's really only one other way that the film can conclude, so there's not all that much of a surprise here. The disc is also D-Box motion code enabled and Blu-ray live enabled and has the standard Universal menus and chapter stops.
The Final Word:
A Perfect Getaway isn't a terrible film, in fact it's reasonably entertaining with a couple of amusing twists and a few fun performances, but it is pretty disposable. It's worth seeing once and this Blu-ray release offers up a nice way to do just that, but I can't realistically see anyone wanting to bother with it a second time and the almost barebones nature of the release doesn't earn it any brownie points in the re-watch department.