When Sarah Jessica Parker look-alike Claire Winslow’s (Kristen Dattilo) fiancé leaves town on a business trip but forgets some important documents Kristen travels to picturesque Switzerland to surprise him with a hand delivery. On her arrival she discovers that he never made it to Switzerland and follows a trail that leads her to the South American country of Coronado, a country in the midst of a bloody civil war.

Chock full of features and smug grins.

When a movie’s tagline is “From the Academy Award winning special effects team from Independence Day� you have to wonder what they’re trying to sell. It’s like serving lunch and saying “From the Pulitzer Prize winning author�, while I’m sure there are some Pulitzer Prize winners that can cook and there are some Academy Award winning special effects teams that can write, direct and produce a movie they surely have to be a rarity.

Coronado proves the point convincingly. The paper thin plot is really just an excuse to show off some cheap but effective special effects. There are a lot of explosions and interesting and realistic sets and locations, most of which were created in miniature but this movie was done on a tiny budget and it really shows in a few vital spots.

Filmed on Chinco DV cameras.

It’s not all bad though, a couple of the characters are likable and there are some edge-of-the-seat moments to keep the viewer conscious but in the end there’s nothing highly original here. The whole movie screams out Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones and while imitation is the best form of flattery if you’re aching for a gritty and fun adventure movie stick with the classics.

Coronado is presented in the original theatrical (when I say theatrical, I mean direct to video) aspect ratio of 2.35:1 but is not enhanced for widescreen displays.

Someone turn on the wipers.

It is rare to find a recent movie (2003, with a 2005 DVD release in this case) that is not 16:9 enhanced and while this wont make a huge difference to viewers with 4:3 or widescreen televisions with zooming features it’s a little annoying on a projector, especially when there is no real reason to not produce an anamorphic transfer.

Other than the lack of anamorphic transfer the video presentation on this disc is average at best despite the relatively high bit rate (averaging around 7mbps). Aliasing is obvious in several scenes and some pixilation is also present, another rarity in recent release DVD’s.

The colour saturation gives a washed out appearance but this is probably deliberate given the locations and story and the black levels in a few scenes tend more to a grey than a black. Most notable is the very bad grain present in the dark night time scenes at around the half way point in the movie, combined with the grey black levels this part of the movie was almost unwatchable.

Overall we are given a very disappointing video presentation.

I'm speechless. I am without speech.

Unfortunately the audio component of this disc doesn’t do much to save it from mediocrity. We are given a simple and flat sounding 2 channel audio track which is unfortunate because Coronado is the type of movie that would definitely benefit from a full 5.1 soundtrack.

For such an obviously low budget movie and DVD there are a few notable extras on this disc:

Making of Coronado (30:19)
The producers and director provide a non-optional commentary on some raw behind the scenes footage where they explain some of the tricks of the trade as well as give an outline of what was real (not much) and what was CGI, blue screen or miniature work within the movie (a lot of it).

Deleted Scenes (10:39)
A number of scenes cut from the movie, if you suffer through the feature you may as well sit through another 10 minutes although there’s not a lot of new stuff here mostly extended versions of existing scenes.

Digital Effects: Before and After (22:59)
Volker Engel and Marc Weigert (producers) take us through the process behind creating the special effects for some of the key scenes in the movie.

Rooms with a view

Trailer
Widescreen but not 16:9 enhanced just to stay consistent with the feature presentation.

DEJ Trailer: Shadow of Fear
DEJ is the production company responsible for Coronado so we have some shameless cross promotion here in the form of a trailer for another B-Grade movie.

Commentary with Claudio Fäh (Director) and Producers Volker Engel & Marc Weigert
A mostly technical discussion about the various special effects tricks used within the movie including some discussion of the inspiration behind the story.

Overall Coronado seems like a pet project brought to life by a team of guys who are obviously technically brilliant when it comes to special effects but aren’t highly qualified when it comes to producing a feature length movie. While Coronado isn’t a movie that will find it’s way into many DVD collections it’s probably worth a weekly rental as one of those movies you watch just to kill a couple of hours.