...a lot better than I thought it was going to be and a lot worse than it could have been.
Nevertheless, the characters and the acting cannot compete with a story that gets gushier and more sentimental as it goes along. It's a slick production, filmed largely on location in NYC; it's well acted, as I say; it's sincere beyond a fault; and it moves along at the speed of sound, if you count the sound of grass growing. The kid is appealing. The young couple are pleasing. The music is pleasant. The conflicts are trite. The plot is predictable. The sentiment is mawkish.
"August Rush" offers up emotion, desire, fighting, death, redemption, and coincidences galore. Worse, it doesn't take long before it turns into a pure fantasy, resorting to exaggeration and ridiculous, inexplicable actions. The ending is inevitable, but it defies belief. Taken as a parable, an allegory, a fairy-tale romance, "August Rush" has a certain engaging quality. But unless you like your stories unabashedly weepy, you may not find yourself quite as swept away by it as it would like to take you.
Video:
Because this is an HD DVD and DVD Combo disc, we get a high-def version of the movie on one side and a standard-def version on the other. The widescreen format on both sides preserves the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1. A high bit rate and anamorphic processing help in reproducing the standard-definition image, which comes up fine, a bit soft and a trifle subdued, perhaps, but reasonably clear and clean and looking fairly truthful.
In high definition, things improve slightly but not so much as you might expect. The 1080-resolution, VC-1 transfer varies from sparkling clean to a bit dull and veiled. It's mostly pleasant to look at, with plenty of clarity in selected scenes. Facial hues appear natural, as do most colors, but not every shot radiates or glows the way other shots do. To the good, I found no signs of edge enhancement, added grain, or unnecessary noise reduction in evidence.
Audio:
On the SD side, the regular Dolby Digital 5.1 audio does a good job conveying the movie's music and dialogue. One notices immediately the wide frequency response and ample stereo spread. Then one notices the extreme bass, the shimmering highs, the naturalness of the midrange, and the extent of the surrounds, showing up particularly well in crowd noise and applause. The music, especially, comes off well. On the HD side, the sound is in Dolby TrueHD, which tends to clarify and refine the sound even further. The music tends to shine through properly, although there isn't always the range I thought I'd hear, except at the very end. During some scenes with ambient city noises or crowd responses, the surrounds capture the moment impressively, and a solid, mellow bass line shows some authority when necessary.
Extras:
Warner Bros. don't provide much in the way of extras, and they are the same on both sides of the disc. The main thing is about ten minutes of additional scenes, a half dozen or so of them. Beyond that, we get thirty-one scene selections but no chapter insert; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. On the high-def side, Warners provide their usual HD DVD bonuses: bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, a guide to elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.
Parting Shots:
"August Rush" is a lot better than I thought it was going to be and a lot worse than it could have been. Still, with the dearth of good family pictures around, "August Rush" fills a void and comes across with at least a modicum of charm. Plus, in high-definition picture and sound along with the standard-definition version, it can satisfy any number of possibilities. Understand, however, that a lot of folks will think of "August Rush" as a "Sugar Rush," while yet others will guess almost every turn in the story from the very outset. You take the good with the bad.
"The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen."
"August Rush" offers up emotion, desire, fighting, death, redemption, and coincidences galore. Worse, it doesn't take long before it turns into a pure fantasy, resorting to exaggeration and ridiculous, inexplicable actions. The ending is inevitable, but it defies belief. Taken as a parable, an allegory, a fairy-tale romance, "August Rush" has a certain engaging quality. But unless you like your stories unabashedly weepy, you may not find yourself quite as swept away by it as it would like to take you.
Video:
Because this is an HD DVD and DVD Combo disc, we get a high-def version of the movie on one side and a standard-def version on the other. The widescreen format on both sides preserves the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1. A high bit rate and anamorphic processing help in reproducing the standard-definition image, which comes up fine, a bit soft and a trifle subdued, perhaps, but reasonably clear and clean and looking fairly truthful.
In high definition, things improve slightly but not so much as you might expect. The 1080-resolution, VC-1 transfer varies from sparkling clean to a bit dull and veiled. It's mostly pleasant to look at, with plenty of clarity in selected scenes. Facial hues appear natural, as do most colors, but not every shot radiates or glows the way other shots do. To the good, I found no signs of edge enhancement, added grain, or unnecessary noise reduction in evidence.
Audio:
On the SD side, the regular Dolby Digital 5.1 audio does a good job conveying the movie's music and dialogue. One notices immediately the wide frequency response and ample stereo spread. Then one notices the extreme bass, the shimmering highs, the naturalness of the midrange, and the extent of the surrounds, showing up particularly well in crowd noise and applause. The music, especially, comes off well. On the HD side, the sound is in Dolby TrueHD, which tends to clarify and refine the sound even further. The music tends to shine through properly, although there isn't always the range I thought I'd hear, except at the very end. During some scenes with ambient city noises or crowd responses, the surrounds capture the moment impressively, and a solid, mellow bass line shows some authority when necessary.
Extras:
Warner Bros. don't provide much in the way of extras, and they are the same on both sides of the disc. The main thing is about ten minutes of additional scenes, a half dozen or so of them. Beyond that, we get thirty-one scene selections but no chapter insert; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. On the high-def side, Warners provide their usual HD DVD bonuses: bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, a guide to elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.
Parting Shots:
"August Rush" is a lot better than I thought it was going to be and a lot worse than it could have been. Still, with the dearth of good family pictures around, "August Rush" fills a void and comes across with at least a modicum of charm. Plus, in high-definition picture and sound along with the standard-definition version, it can satisfy any number of possibilities. Understand, however, that a lot of folks will think of "August Rush" as a "Sugar Rush," while yet others will guess almost every turn in the story from the very outset. You take the good with the bad.
"The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen."
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