David Vaughn

Captured in 1943, a battalion of British soldiers is forced to work as slave labor to build a bridge for the Japanese over the River Kwai. The sadistic POW commander, Col. Saito, insists the British officers work alongside the enlisted personnel against the bylaws of the Geneva Convention. The British officer, Col. Nicholson, brings this to the attention of Saito, who promptly puts him in the “hot box” until he changes his tune. Nicholson refuses to back down, and a battle of wills ensues. Saito eventually realizes he’s fighting a losing battle and must find a way to inspire the prisoners to work faster, and Nicholson is the key to getting the bridge built on time.

PRICE $400

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Plethora of streaming options
Outstanding picture quality
Dual HDMI outputs
Minus
No 3D support
Flimsy disc tray
No Dolby Vision support

THE VERDICT
This second-generation Ultra HD Blu-ray player delivers exceptional performance and value, especially for heavy Netflix or Amazon users.

I’m in my 13th year of reviewing consumer electronics, and I’m continually amazed at the industry’s pace of innovation. In the span of about 20 years, we’ve gone from bulky, backbreaking CRT displays to flat-panel TVs that hang on the wall, as well as projectors that are smaller than the base of a vacuum cleaner—all at prices that the middle class can easily afford.

Discovering life on Mars would be the crowning achievement in any scientist’s career, so when a team on the International Space Station receives a care package of samples from the red planet, they can’t wait to begin their experiments. To their surprise, they discover there was once life on Mars after all, and they unleash a creature that evolves at an accelerated pace that has its eyes on the planet below them.

It’s been several years since Xander Cage has been on the scene, but he’s brought back into the fold when a device called Pandora’s Box falls into the wrong hands. It has the ability to bring down any satellite and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction as it crashes down on the planet. One of his conditions for coming back to the CIA was that of recruiting his own team so he can ensure their absolute trust and his own personal safety.