Time travel is nothing but confusing and for all intensive purposed it doesn’t exist ….at the moment. But then again maybe it does and people from the future are here right now. They may have even read this review and come back from their future to kill me to prevent me writing any more rubbish! :)

In FREQUENCY, the choice was a parallel co-existence of the time-lines. Through what can only be described as an unexplained phenomenon (oh that’s just SUCH an easy work-around isn’t it! :) with the aurora borealis up in the sky in full view, burnt out New York Detective John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel) has found a way to communicate with his now deceased [then firefighter] father Frank (Dennis Quaid) back in the 1960’s through his dad’s old shortwave radio.

John is working on a 30 year serial killer case and so he enlists the help of his father back in 1969 to help him out with the murders.

As has always been the case (and is about the only consistent thing regarding time travel that actually makes sense) making changes to the past changes the present. A result of John’s meddling with his past, with the help of his father, his present live goes through many changes, some for the better, some for the worse.

So how does this transfer hold up?

...

VIDEO
Aaahhhhh what a lovely Anamorphic Widescreen transfer from the reliable clan at Roadshow.

With quite a natural look about it, sharpness is very high and consistent throughout with only minimal signs of aliasing, which isn’t all that distracting.

The image is not only very well detailed but also has very good depth for a nice three dimensional look. Colour saturation is very pleasing to the eye with accurate fleshtones. Black level is very good and so shadow detail is quite well defined.

Spread over two layers of an RSDL DVD, the layer change occurs within chapter 8 at 35:28 as John is staring at his lighter

.

AUDIO
I did love this audio mix, but damn it’s loud! I had to knock the volume back approximately 10db on my amp for normal listening conditions! (the main menu is just as bad, if not worse)

On offer is a very nice Dolby Digital 5.1 mix as well as a very good Dolby Digital 2.0 surround mix. Both are very aggressive, which was quite surprising given the film is not a whiz-bang sci-fi action adventure, but something of a murder mystery thriller genre mix.
Musically this makes great use of 5.1 with a very enveloping music score from Michael Kamen, and his music is very dynamic and has an excellent bass extension to boot!

Sound effects wise it is [at times] one of those everything but the kitchen sink jobbies with great dynamics and terrific discrete surround usage. (I do think this audio mix is perhaps a little too dynamic for the home environment and could have used some re-equalisation, but at least it’s not earpeircingly bright)

Audio sync was fine and the dialogue was intelligible throughout

...

EXTRAS
There are some pretty good extras to be has here with far more than I had expected.

Anyone familiar with those stupid imac ads on TV for the pretty pictures for music will see similarities with the frequency main menu. As there are level indicators top and bottom of the screen which move in time with the music (nice) Scene selects are also motion based with background music

- Director Gregory Hobbit (Primal Fear) lends himself to an audio commentary track. From a Technical viewpoint this is very informative, but is pretty dry for my tastes (one the die hard fans need apply :)

- Theatrical Trailer – 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen with a great Dolby 5.1 mix (I just love it when trailers are in 5.1!)

- Delete Scenes 4 scenes which are essentially extensions of current scenes. (given the films running time I’m glad they were left out as there really offer nothing to the narrative…maybe a few more could have been trimmed also :) all are of surprisingly excellent quality, and anamorphic Widescreen

- Featurette "Science and Technology behind Frequency " a 38 minute featurette broken into 5 sections explaining the effects, story, etc of the film …. Pretty good stuff with some interesting info

- Conceptual & Solar Gallery
At first glance this feature confused the hell out of me. The menu has 5 options to choose from, the first being multiangle (4 angles)
it turns out that it’s all part of the 1 opening sequence, and shows 4 different procedures used to create the one final CGI sequence. The idea with the multi angle option is so you can compare the 4 procedures with each other on the fly using your remote ANGLE button. The reason I got confused is that the four procedures are played one after the other, each having the 4 angles to view so is essentially 4 repeats of the same sequence.. make sense? J

- Cast and Crew Bios.

- and the Dolby Canyon trailer

Though it drags on a little, Frequency is a great little film and has received pretty good treatment for its DVD release.

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver : Denon AVC-A1SE THX Ultra (Dolby Surround EX, DTS-ES Discrete)
Speakers:-
     Mains: Quadral Phonolgue Gold Amun
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Surrounds Left/Right: B&W 602
     Surrounds Back : Jamo Magic 14
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 9th April 2001

*Frequency jpeg files for internet promotion use only. Copyright© exists on all aspects of these files by Roadshow Home Entertainment