Blu-ray Movie Reviews

College students start dropping like flies when they receive voicemails from their future selves with the exact date, time, and horrid details of their eventual deaths. Psychology student Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon) becomes concerned when a number of her friends are murdered, so she enlists the help of detective Jack Andrews (Ed Burns) to search for answers as quickly as possible, because Beth has received her own disturbing voicemail from the future.

The movie is based on the 2003 Japanese film Chakushin ari, which must translate to, "Don't make this film in English for it will suck." The film starts with a decent premise, but within 15 minutes, it loses its way and insults the intelligence of the viewer. The performances by Burns and Sossamon are bland and uninteresting (granted, they didn't have much to work with), and the directing by Eric Valette leaves a lot to be desired.

The VC-1 encode is rather lackluster in appearance, but it's a definite upgrade over the standard DVD. Detail is somewhat inconsistent, with some fuzzy bits in the backgrounds, but delineation in close-ups is excellent. Grain is preserved relatively well, but the black levels aren't as solid as they should be.

With no bonus features provided on the disc, Warner had plenty of room on the single-layer BD25 disc to include a Dolby TrueHD 5.1-channel soundtrack. Dynamics are above-average, with very good stereo separation across the front as well as some decent discrete effects across the rear.

There isn't much of a positive nature to say about this film other than it is thankfully short at only 87 minutes. The presentation on Blu-ray is decent enough, but the movie itself ranks down there as one of the worst I have ever had the displeasure to sit through. If the premise turns you on, I would seek out the original Japanese thriller Chakushin ari, because One Missed Call isn't even worth a rental.

Release Date: April 22, 2008

Film: 1 out of 10
Picture: 7 out of 10
Sound: 7 out of 10

Review System

Source
Sony PlayStation 3

Display
JVC DLA-RS1 projector
Stewart FireHawk screen (76.5" wide, 16:9)

Electronics
Yamaha RX-Z11 AVR
Belkin PF60 power conditioner

Speakers
M&K S-150s (L, C, R)
M&K SS-150s (LS, RS, SBL, SBR)
SVS PC-Ultra subwoofer

Cables
Monoprice HDMI cables (source to pre/pro)
Best Deal analog-audio cables
PureLink HDC Fiber Optic HDMI Cable System (15 meters) from pre/pro to projector