Blue Thunder Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
The air above Los Angeles has become a battle ground in this explosive action thriller. Roy
Scheider ('Jaws') stars as Frank Murphy, a courageous and honorable Los Angeles police
officer who is chosen to test run Blue Thunder, a high-tech experimental attack helicopter
that comes complete with listening devices, camera lenses, and computer files. While flying
Blue Thunder, Murphy and his partner, Lymangood (Daniel Stern) discover that the
government intends to use the helicopter for corrupt crowd control and surveillance. The top-
secret operation is being run by a sinister colonel (Malcolm McDowell, 'A Clockwork Orange',
'Heroes'), who will stop at nothing to keep the devious military conspiracy a secret. In an
effort to expose the covert military operation Murphy decides to "borrow" Blue Thunder,
flying against military and police aircrafts on a death-defying flight. Superb special effects
and daredevil stunts combine with breathtaking cinematography to create a dizzying battle
for justice. Catch you later.
This mother hears through walls, fires 4,000 rounds a minute, and peaks down dresses at
1,000 feet.
Ah, John Badham. 1980s filmmaker extraordinaire. No, really. Though he's worked steadily
since, nothing on his resumé has quite matched the heart and soul of his career, the triumvirate
of Blue Thunder, Wargames, and Short Circuit. These
films encapsulate the decade through and through; not only does each film follow one of the
decade's most widely-adopted themes -- highly advanced and in some way out-of-control
technology -- but they also serve as wonderful ambassadors of the era, every frame oozing 80s
culture, style, and music, the latter a Badham trademark shared with fellow Director John
Carpenter (Starman). Though
not the best of the three (that distinction going to Wargames) or the cheesiest
(Short Circuit), Blue Thunder represents a picture that's delivered on a fairly
even keel, offering steady doses of action, good characterization, and a plot that's strong enough
to hold audience interest through to the end. Sporting a 1984 Oscar nomination for Best Editing,
Blue Thunder was also something of a trend-setter; both the short-lived "Blue Thunder"
television show and the longer-lasting "Airwolf" -- a show about a highly advanced attack
helicopter -- premiered
on television a year later and, in 1989, the United States unleashed the deadly Apache attack
helicopter into
combat for the first time during the invasion of Panama.
Blue Thunder and the sunrise.
Los Angeles police helicopter pilots Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider, Jaws) and Richard
Lymangood (Daniel Stern, Home Alone)
witness from above the brutal attack on councilwoman Diane McNeely (Robin Brantos), the
chairperson of the mayor's task force on combating urban violence. Nevertheless, Murphy and
Lymagood are grounded when off-task shenanigans kept them from assisting in the prevention of
the attack and pursuit of the attackers in a timely fashion. When the councilwoman dies of her
wounds, Murphy initiates his own personal investigation into the matter. He's soon recalled to
duty to test pilot the city's newest helicopter, code named Blue Thunder, a radically advanced
machine meant for crowd control for the upcoming 1984 Olympic games. Closely involved in the
project is Colonel F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell, Star Trek:
Generations), a man Murphy served with in the skies over Vietnam. When it appears
that there may be more to Blue Thunder and Chochrane than meets the eye, Murphy sets out on
a dangerous and unsanctioned mission in Blue Thunder to save his life and expose the truth.
Blue Thunder takes a tried-and-true story that was found in many pictures during the
1970s and 1980s -- the tale of a cop on the edge who treads dangerous ground when he's told to
back off a case but investigates on his own accord -- but here ups the ante by placing him in the
driver's seat of a highly advanced weapon with then-unparalleled surveillance capabilities. The
Blue
Thunder is no Apache, but it's a great looking piece of equipment and ahead of its time in several
areas. Indeed, like all great forward-thinking pieces of fiction, Blue Thunder proves
somewhat visionary in its prediction of what the none-too-distant future had to offer. The
chopper
itself is tough and angular, taking on a no-nonsense appearance, a perfect fit for the film's edgy
protagonist. It's equipped with a stealth (or "whisper") mode, sensitive listening devices, various
scanning and visual penetration modes, and a precision-targeting system tied into the pilot's
helmet. There's nothing too futuristic about the Blue Thunder helicopter, particularly in
retrospect, but for its day it was a
fine piece of machinery that proved a worthy central character in one of the more visually
impressive action-oriented pictures of the early 1980s.
Anything past the good-looking chopper and loud and aggressive action scenes seem like gravy in
a movie like Blue Thunder, and there's enough here to go around during a busy
Thanksgiving afternoon. The story line is not necessarily innovative but it does well to layer on
suspense and tie it directly into the capabilities of the Blue Thunder helicopter. It often enthralls
dramatically and psychologically in the midst of the action, drawing the audience in and, while
there's no real suspense as to the ultimate outcome, Badham squeezes every last ounce drama
out of each sequence. Blue Thunder is certainly no thinking man's movie, nor does it
require an astronomical IQ to enjoy, but it never insults its audience's intelligence, either, even in
the midst of several clichés. Also aiding in creating a rather impressive outing is a collection of
fair-to-good performances from the cast; there's nothing much here that requires more than a
passing effort from Roy Scheider, Daniel Stern, and Malcolm McDowell, but they never once give
less than a 100-percent effort and never appear disinterested or otherwise dispassionate about
their characters and the story.
Blue Thunder finally arrives, appropriately enough, on Blu-ray, with a quality 1080p,
2.40:1-framed transfer. Neither fine details nor colors ever jump off the screen, but there's nothing
here that's unsatisfactory, either. Blue Thunder isn't the sort of film that offers either
eye-popping colors or breathtaking detail; it looks as it should, with a color palette that's the
slightest bit
drab but otherwise steady. Close-up shots reveal sufficient detail, for instance the seams and lines
in Blue Thunder's fuselage. Blacks look fairly good; several nighttime shots, particularly early
in the film, provide stable and mostly inky blacks that are generally dotted by a fair level of grain but
don't drown out too much detail. Speaking of grain, the transfer reveals a rather heavy amount;
there's absolutely no sign of any sort of noticeable scrubbing here. The print exhibits only
extremely minor speckles; it's mostly clean and pleasing to the eye.
The image can go a little soft on some of the exterior distance shots of the chopper against the
cityscape, but the transfer is otherwise consistently sharp and strong. This Blu-ray release of
Blue Thunder should more than satisfy first-time viewers, and the film's longtime fans will
be ecstatic with how good it looks.
Blue Thunder rumbles onto Blu-ray with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. This mix
offers an active sound field; the film's opening jumble of radio chatter may be heard emanating
from
every corner of the soundstage, and there's never a lack of back-channel information. Throughout
the film, the sounds of helicopters may be heard buzzing about the soundstage, the rotors sweeping
across the listening area with fair level of volume and clarity. Minor ambience also finds its way
into the mix, offering a fairly realistic sense of space in the less aggressive sequences. A chase
sequence near the end of he film makes for a fantastic listen; choppers maneuver through the
soundstage, gunfire erupts with authority, and it's all accompanied by a powerful low end that
completes an engaging aural sequence. Dialogue delivery is smooth and intelligible throughout.
Blue Thunder makes for another high quality lossless soundtrack from Sony.
Blue Thunder delivers a solid array of bonus materials. First up is a commentary track
with
Director John Badham, Editor Frank Morriss, and Motion Control Supervisor Hoyt Yeatman. They
discuss the film's basis in reality and the technology on display throughout the picture, filming
locations, the cast and their performances, shooting techniques, and more. The track remains
solidly focused on the technical tidbits surrounding the process of bringing this picture to life, as
well as some
discussions on the real-world operations of helicopters. Though not a terribly fascinating track,
it's
worth a listen for those interested in helicopters or how movies were made back in the 1980s.
'The Special:' Building Blue Thunder (480p, 8:23) takes a rather fascinating look at the
origins, design, and construction of the film's centerpiece prop, the helicopter. Ride with the
Angels: Making 'Blue Thunder' (480p) is a three-part documentary that takes viewers deep
into the work that went into bringing Blue Thunder to the screen, delving into the three
most crucial segments of the filmmaking process: Pre-Production (16:10),
Production (18:44) and Post-Production (10:21). Next up is the vintage
1983 Promotional Featurette (480p, 8:36), a rather cheesy, none-too-substantive piece
meant to introduce viewers to the world of Blue Thunder. Also included is the original
Blue Thunder trailer (480p, 3:21) and 1080p previews for Final Fantasy VII: Advent
Children, The Da Vinci Code,
Casino Royale, The Sky Crawlers,
and
Blood: The Last Vampire. This disc is also BD-Live (Blu-ray profile 2.0) enabled.
John Badham knows how to make an entertaining picture, and Blue Thunder delivers a fun
and engaging ride from start to finish. Just as good as the movie is the fact that it's here on
Blu-ray so relatively early on in the format's existence. Movie fans should be positively ecstatic with
Sony Pictures' commitment to releasing a broad array of movies in something of a bulk quantity on
a month-by-month basis and, for the most part, delivering high quality video and audio
presentations along with a fair collection of bonus materials. With their recent wave of 1980s
catalogue releases, the studio has breathed new life into some old favorites, a few forgotten gems,
and some films that perhaps time hasn't looked too kindly upon. Blue Thunder falls into
the middle grouping, a fair picture that's never mentioned on any sort of "best of" lists but makes
for a fun watch that never slows down and still impresses, not particularly with its technology, but
in
the way it handles the material. As expected, Blue Thunder looks and sounds just fine on
Blu-ray, and the disc offers viewers a fair collection of extras. Recommended.
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