Blu-Ray Review:

Days of Thunder

By Jason Gillard

*Screen shots are not from the Blu-Ray source.

Movie

A lot of people might say that Days of Thunder is Top Gun with cars in place of jets, and they may be right, but I really enjoyed watching Day's of Thunder again.  The movie is about Cole Trickle, played by Tom Cruise, who is a young hot shot driver who gets his chance to compete at the top level which is Nascar racing.  Cole gets into a crash that leaves him physically injured but it's his mind that is the real problem and his constant concern that he may die behind the wheel leads to problems with his racing ability.  The cinematography in the film is really good, and the races are set up so you feel like you're in that car with Cole.  The movie has 80's written all over it, but it is a lot of fun to watch.  The movie stars Randy Quaid, Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall and Nicole Kidman.  If your a fan of Tom Crusie or Nascar racing this should be on your must see list.

8 out of 10

Video

The transfer for this film is good, but nothing spectacular.  There are certain scenes that really shine, with colours and detail that jump off the screen.   There are definitely parts in the transfer where the original negative had scratches and dust on it, but this doesn't happen often and really doesn't affect the movie at all. Black levels are also good and as I said before there is a good amount of detail in the image, but that detail is usually lost when larger scenes are presented.  I haven't seen the standard definition version in quite some time, but I would have to say this is probably the best version of Days of Thunder ever.

7 out of 10

Audio

I was really surprised at the audio of this film.  You are give a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track that is quite active throughout the entire film.  I found the dialogue was a little low in some spots but overall it stayed in the center channel.  The surrounds are quite active which is great for a movie like this, but the pans between speakers are not that seamless.  My favorite scene for audio is in the final race when the announcer says "Gentlemen Start Your Engines" and all 40 cars fire up there engines. It sounds awesome!  Overall, it's a pretty good track.

8 out of 10

Extras

Here is what you get in the way of extras:

Trailer (HD)

That's it!  I am really disappointed in this one.  It would have been great to see a behind the scenes documentary.

1 out of 10

Overall

I still think this disc is worth it.  The movie is fun and it has a pretty decent transfer and great audio.  If they had included some extras it would have made me give this a highly recommended.

7.5 out of 10

Recommended.

Days of Thunder Blu-ray is available now from Amazon.com