Frequency

What would you do if you could talk to someone in the past? What would you do if that someone was your long dead father?

John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel), a New York cop, stumbles across his fathers old Ham Radio and decides to fire it up one night. This night is October 11, 1999 and with the aurora borealis being very prominent, he hears a voice from the past. On this same night in 1969, Fireman Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid) is bemused by a voice telling him of his short lived future.

When the advice from the future convinces Frank to opt for an alternate evacuation method during a warehouse fire, his life is changed forever. Little does John know that having averted his fathers death has caused ripples throughout time, affecting the outcomes of various other lives, including those of the serial homicide he is currently working on. When the homicide comes to his own doorstep it's up to John and his father Frank to solve the murder.

Delving into the space-time continuum within a movie is always bound to produce continuity errors and there are a few to pick on here. But why would you need to? There have never been any time-travel movies or theories without their flaws so if we just accept them and move on we're bound to enjoy whatever is left. Even the Back to the Future movies had their share of errors but that in no way detracts from the enjoyment to be had. Leave the errors to those without lives.

The opening scene of the movie sets the mood with some amazing imagery of a computer generated Sun and its solar flares. This is a very sedate version of the opening scene to Contact with the background radio transmissions providng the audio content for the moment. The Aurora Borealis looks magical as well and would be a breathtaking sight if seen in real life.

It seems that more and more movies are coming up trumps when dealing with darkened areas and a lot of shadows. This is no exception, going as far as being one of the best looking discs I've seen of late. As if the shadow detail wasn't perfect, everything else about it just oozes cool with excellent detail in all areas from sharpness to background detail. Every little nuance of detail that could be captured on film is transfered pristinely onto this DVD.

Backup the excellent video with an excellent soundtrack that tantalises the senses and rocks the bottom end and you've got one magical looking and sounding disc.

In general, the soundtrack just wallows along with whatever ambient sounds it needs. Many of these are dialogue based with the levels a little too low in some instances. You'll be using the remote from time to time to adjust the volume up and down between dialogue and action scenes.

Speaking of action, the opening explosions, the warehouse fire and various other events throughout the movie provide for some entertaining 5.1 material. Even if you were upping the volume during the dialogue moments you'd probably leave the volume there and enjoy the action moments that little bit more.

Here comes some excellent supplementary material.

• The Audio Commentary by director Gregory Hoblit - is somewhat entertaining albeit a little spaced out, length wise, not opinion wise. :)
• Animated Menus - The main menu is animated with a graphic equalizer theme as well as some of the menu transitions

• 4 Deleted Scenes - 2 extended scenes and 2 fully deleted scenes make up for some interesting viewing.
• Documentary - The Science & Technology Behind Frequency - This doco looks at the movie and its theories in detail from Solar winds causing the Aurora to the intricate details of the 1969 fire brigade, all taken into account to produce as accurate as possible a movie.
• Conceptual & Solar Galleries - features the use of multi-angle technology to show off the visual effects used in the opening sun/solar flare shots.
• Rounding off the package is a Theatrical Trailer and some Cast & Crew biographies.

Frequency delivers on all counts as a DVD with an excellent story, excellent video, great audio and a perfect extras compliment.

If you enjoyed the movie, you'll love this presentation and if you haven't seen this movie then you're missing out on some good value product here.