It's a very simple formula: "good" teenage son (Shia LaBeouf)
turns introverted after father accidentally dies. Teenage son takes out
anger on teacher and is charged with assault. Under house arrest,
teenage son starts spying on neighbours and suspects that one of them
is a
murderer. No one believes teenage son because he is now considered
"problematic". Disturbia is not only a subtle rip-off of the Hitchcock
film Rear
Window, it also borrows a lot from the 1989 Tom Hanks film the 'burbs.
To be fair, the movie is not bad. It's a great end-of-summer flick for teens. I just expected a lot more suspense and a lot less Ferris Bueller. Any film that is marketed as a thriller and then has a Disney opening with a father and son fly-fishing is never a good sign. Disturbia starts out this way, and takes an hour before it even resembles a thriller.
Picture & Sound
There's not much to say about the picture and sound. The movie doesn't gain anything new on HD-DVD over regular DVD. It's presented in a 1080p format, which helps during the darker scenes, and during the Sarah Roemer bathing suit scenes. The score sounds great in Dolby Digital Plus, but is wasted for most of the movie with horrible one-hit wonders (if they ever were hits at all).
Sarah Roemer and Shia LaBeouf spying on the neighboours
Special Features
All the same features on the regular DVD are on the HD-DVD in high definition. These include deleted scenes, outtakes, bloopers, a making-of, and a crappy music video. There is a cool pop-up trivia version of the movie which displays facts in little binocular-shaped pop-up bubbles. A major disappointment is that instead of adding anything new to the HD-DVD, they have actually left out the feature Hitchcock Flare, which is on the regular DVD.
Bottom-line
Disturbia wastes the capabilities of HD-DVD and is not worth the
price. The regular DVD should make any Disturbia-fan satisfied.
Disturbia (HD-DVD) ** (out of 5)
104 min. / Rated PG-13
Directed by D.J. Caruso
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss
Related links: Amazon.com, IMDb
Review by Brian McKechnie
Comments