In order to
fulfill his mission of rescuing a US Citizen from Nigeria, Navy
SEAL Lt. A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) and his team must escort 70
villagers out of the country before they are murdered by the new
government.
CRITIQUE
The theatrical cut
of Tears of the Sun was a very good movie, though it did have
its fair share of problems. These are usual leaps of logic that had
to have been made in order to tell a story of this type. The things
that, if you think about them for too long, the entire film starts to
degrade. However, because of the pace of the film and Antoine Fuqua’s
direction, these problems are never brought directly to the surface of
the story.
That’s where the
extended cut harms the film. By extended the film 20 extra minutes,
the story begins to drag and the leaps of logic begin to show their
face. Granted, this film adds more to the political side of the story,
but the end result doesn’t really make much of a difference. What was
a well paced, moral based action film becomes a little heavy handed
and slow. Is this still a good film? Yes. Just not as good as it’s
predecessor.
Those who already
own this film would do best to ignore this release. This cut contains
the same footage seen in the deleted scenes on the first DVD.
THE VIDEO
The digital,
anamorphic transfer looks beautiful. The colors are rich and the black
levels are consistent. It’s a very good presentation.
THE AUDIO
The film is
presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital and sound really good. The jungle
ambience is really good and the action sequences are beautifully
mixed. It’s a very good mix.
THE EXTRAS
Voices of Africa: An interview session with some native Africans who went
through, and managed to escape similar hardships as those depicted in
the film.
Journey to Safety:
Making of Tears of the Sun:
An okay making-of feature.
Interactive Map of
Africa: A somewhat limited interactive map.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This DVD is a
fairly lackluster director’s cut. With no new commentary, and the
same features from the previous release, this is a somewhat poorly
executed director’s cut. While it isn’t a bad disc to check out for
someone who hasn’t seen the film, they would do best to just view the
original theatrical version special edition DVD.
