Plot: What’s it about?
The early eighties were a time of curiosity of technology and a good action film every now and then for the box office and in 1983, one film dealing with flight of a special weapon in the air of Los Angeles made its way to the screens. With a cast of many notables and award nominees, color and weather combined for the name of a helicopter known as Blue Thunder.
Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) is a helicopter cop with a new partner (Daniel Stern) and prone to trouble, even with himself. When a missed lead grounds him, he’s called back into action when the police cooperate with a new vehicle that could be used as a precaution for the upcoming Olympics. Murphy sees a demonstration but starts to notice as he’s around this special helicopter that there’s a little more use for it than just the police.
Here is a film that I used to watch on cable a lot and even with nostalgia aside, this is one film that used the flight footage well as well as an fun movie that has a very good three act structure when we get the intro to Murphy, the intro to the copter and then the big decision Murphy makes to start up the third act.
With the actors involved, Roy Scheider plays it well as Murphy a former veteran of war turned cop who is open to flashbacks during his flights and sees linking parties look more apparent when a face from the past comes into play during the films second act played equally well by the great Malcolm McDowall as Murphy’s adversary and the films villain Cochrane. Both actors are given great support from Warren Oates (in his last film) as the police captain, Daniel Stern as Murphy’s partner in the skies and Candy Clark as Murphy’s love interest who just never knows when he’ll commit to her.
One thing that Blue Thunder has plenty of is action and a lot of the aerial scenes both day and night were shot beautifully by cinematographer John Alonzo and director Badham concocts a routine story of a government project that’s a little more with a policeman on the run with what he knows and from beginning to end provides an entertaining and fun film that sometimes stretches the reality but at the same time works with the flow of the film and never gets to the point of ridiculousness and still provides a great view of the future even when some of it is prevalent present day.
Video: How does it look?
This is the second release of this film and the result is a huge improvement. Where the first favored the 70 millimeter aspect ratio of 2.20:1 and with it much wider at 2.35:1 and anamorphic the film looks better with the night scenes and the day scenes not overbleeding with color and contains hardly too many halos as well as capturing all the action in the frame without masking out any info as the previous release had. The print is clean with hardly any flaws and with the effects and aerial shpts. there’s hardly a speck to be found and it makes for a very good transfer.
Audio: How does it sound?
The Dolby Digital 5.1 track retains the decent effects of the eighties as well as having slight mutedness when the action is about to start. When it does, the track gets better and the score of Arthur B. Rubinstein (which has the sounds of another film of that year with the same director, WarGames) are present throughout all channels for there’s hardly scenes without it (except between later meetings of Warren Oates and any character). It comes out wonderfully and it makes for a solid track. This disc has a 2.0 French and Portuguese track as well as English, Spanish, Portuguese and French subtitles.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Where the first release had only the film, one extra part of a scene and the trailer, this one takes away the extra part and retains the trailer but has a whole lot of extras that starts with a commentary with director John Badham and editor (Oscar nominee) Frank Morriss and halfway through the film are joined by visual effects Hoyt Yeatman. All together they provide some great information, some laughs and an interesting element concerning the film’s third act as well as that not too different from yesterday as this reviewer is writing this, this film was a victim of one of the few times there was a writers strike. Overall, a very good listen!
Some of the info is repeated but not wasted in “Riding With The Angels: The Making of Blue Thunder” and through the great creative hands of filmmaker Charles De Lauzirika, it is an intriguing over forty minute documentary covering all bases and includes writer Dan O’Bannon and actor Roy Scheider and even though other principles from the film weren’t included, the result is short and sweet. This is divided in three parts and in all a high recommendation is to utilize the Play All function for all the way it’s better in one shot that divided.
Along with that is “The Rescue: Building Blue Thunder” which is a short eight minute featurette showing what it was like to film
on the title helicopter and it’s interesting to see what was done in the air and the lengths when a lot of modifications get put onto a helicopter and some of the diffioulties involved.
In addition is the eight minute featurette of the film made at the time of its relase along with three storyboards of the scenes with the helicopters as well as the films theatrical trailer and trailers to other Sony related items on DVD.
With the moderization of an armed helicopter, Blue Thunder is an entertaining action film of the eighties that continues to entertain today and made even better with a superior release and transfer on the Special Edition of the film.
