Passengers (Blu-ray) By David Vaughn   •   May, 2009 After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway), is assigned to counsel the flight's five survivors. When she begins to uncover conflicting accounts of the accident, she chalks it up to traumatic stress disorder—until the survivors start vanishing one by one.

The screenplay by Ronnie Christensen is decent, but without the chemistry of Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson (who plays Eric, one of the survivors), things could have gotten ugly in a hurry. There are a couple of twists that ratchet up the tension by the third act, which tries to deliver a M. Night Shyamalan-type conclusion, but it falls short of The Sixth Sense and is more akin to The Village—not bad, but predictable.

With the exception of some edge enhancement, there's not much to complain about in this AVC encode. Detail is very good, although it's a little too sharp due to the post-processing gimmickry, and the black levels are inky and deep with spot-on contrast. The color palette is laid back and not too saturated, but the muted hues fit the mood of the film.

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack is impressive, especially the eerie score from Edward Shearmur. Dialog is mostly intelligible, but there are a couple of scenes in which the timbre doesn't match the surroundings, making the dialog difficult to comprehend—most notably an exchange between Claire and an airline employee (David Morse) in the third act. The crash has impressive dynamics with deep bass and ample use of the surround speakers.

The bonus features aren't that interesting. They include an audio commentary by director Rodrigo Garcia and actor Patrick Wilson, an EPK (electronic press kit) featurette (HD), a peek at creating the plane crash (HD), and some deleted scenes (SD).

Be sure you're well rested when sitting down to watch this psychological thriller. The stellar video presentation kept me interested enough to stick through the methodical first two acts, and I was rewarded with a fulfilling ending, although once you know how it ends, I'm not sure a second viewing is in the cards. Rent it.

Release Date: May 12, 2009
Studio: Sony

Movie: 5/10
Picture: 9/10
Sound: 8/10

Review System

Source
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player

Display
JVC DLA-RS1 projector
Stewart FireHawk screen (76.5" wide, 16:9)

Electronics
Onkyo Pro PR-SC885 pre/pro
Anthem PVA-7 power amplifier
Belkin PF60 power conditioner

Speakers
M&K S-150s (L, C, R)
M&K SS-150s (LS, RS, SBL, SBR)
SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer

Cables
Monoprice HDMI cables (source to pre/pro)
Best Deal analog-audio cables
PureLink HDC Fiber Optic HDMI Cable System (15 meters) from pre/pro to projector

Acoustical treatments from GIK Acoustics