# Blood Diamond HD-DVD Review



## Mitch G (Sep 8, 2006)

Part political message movie, part action thriller, part love story, Blood Diamond weaves all these parts together into a single cohesive film. On top of a good story the great performances by Leonardo Dicaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou make it an overall believable adventure. There are a couple of places where it goes a little over the top, but that’s the action thriller part talking and is balanced enough by reality to be acceptable.

The story centers around Hounsou's character, Solomon Vandy. (One can’t help but think his name was in reference to the legendary King Solomon’s mines.). Vandy is separated from his family when rebel forces attack his village and the movie follows him as he tries to retrieve them. Dicaprio plays a soldier of fortune who gets involved and Connelly is a reporter who crosses their paths. I'll leave it at that to avoid giving away too much of the story. Suffice it to say, though, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the film.

From a PQ standpoint, it was pretty good. Some scenes seemed crisper than others. But, it wasn't grainy or anything that was annoying. Just not as sharp as some other HD-DVDs I've seen. 

SQ wise, it was quite good. I only use TOS so I'm limited to the DTS downmix, but it's still better DTS than one gets on an SD-DVD. Furthermore, between boomboxes carried by soldiers to explosions created by soldiers, there were lots of opportunities for the sub to work. 

Also noteworthy is that Blood Diamond is one of the first HD-DVDs with web-enabled features. Although some of the initial menus took about 30-60 seconds to load, Blood Diamond hints at the power these features can have. In Blood Diamond the web features present a map of conflicts in Africa and their history as well as polls one can take regarding the movie and it’s subject matter or HD-DVD in general. It was kind of fun to see what these polls indicated as far as others’ knowledge and opinions. I can foresee these features being used in future movies such that they connect to real-time news about the subject matter, or blogs from the stars or directors or even just the Wikipedia entry related to the movie or subject matter. Overall, I think they are a nice addition to the home movie watching experience.


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