New to Blu: September 1-7

The only new movie due on Blu-ray this week is one that bypassed cinemas, Repo Men.

High-Def Digest praised the quality of the HD video and audio but, in line with other critics, said the Jude Law-Forest Whitaker vehicle devolves “from a thinking man’s action thriller to your basic futuristic sci-fi trash romp, so overloaded in its excesses that it makes the Saw films look reserved”.

More reliable sci-fi is offered by Volume 3 of Doctor Who: Series 5 while the pick of the week is another BBC release, the wildlife spectacular, Nature’s Great Events (which TV One recently aired in SD).

Said Blu-ray.com of the HD transfer: “While documentary enthusiasts will have to contend with more artifacting and edge enhancement than they encountered on Planet Earth, [it] boasts a fairly attractive 1080i/VC-1 transfer that, more often than not, looks quite good.”

But DVD Verdict reckons it “easily ranks” among the excellent HD nature shows of late: “The awesome beauty of nature is nicely showcased in this series by great camerawork.”

Otherwise, the week offers a slew of back-catalogue releases that range from the impressive (Minority Report, Road to Perdition) to the indifferent (You, Me And Dupree, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Bulletproof, Honey).

According to The Digital Bits, the Blu-ray of Minority Report “looks superb” while Home Theater Forum said the elements “are all here; deep blacks, remarkably bright, clean, and issue free whites (no crush or blooming), and the presence of the use of digital noise reduction appropriate, and edge enhancement missing. This is exactly how this film should be seen.”

Despite Road to Perdition’s bumpy storytelling, DVD Town could find “nothing to fault” about the video presentation: “The dual-layer BD50, MPEG-4 encoded, 2.35:1 ratio transfer is first-rate all the way.”