General Evans Above Archive for Aug 05, 2018

Breaking In Blu-ray review

Aug 05, 2018 – permalink

Breaking In is a competent thriller about a mother (Gabrielle Union) who finds herself on the outside of her well-protected home while her children are facing threats from home invaders. In order to protect her children, she must break in to her own home, hence the title. The movie ticks off all the necessary genre boxes without much flair. The title is now available in a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download combo pack from Universal Home Entertainment. Let’s look at this release from a technical perspective.

The disc contains two versions of the film, one 88 minutes and an 89 minute director’s cut. The 1080p AVC-encoded transfer is presented in the movie’s 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The transfer is quite flawless, with only a very rare amount of aliasing in some scenes. Details are crisp and clear, whether it’s natural surfaces, structural textures or facial features. The colours are natural and the black levels are excellent, which is important given the number of nighttime scenes. It’s an excellent video presentation.

Moving over to the audio side of things, we get an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack as well as French and Spanish DTS 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available in English SDH, French and Spanish. The 5.1 soundtrack is workmanlike. It gets the job done but you’re not going to be knocked off your feet by it. Dialogue is clear and centred, low frequency elements add some “oomph” when needed and the amount of ambient material in the surround tracks does its job.

The disc has a small collection of extras as well as a DVD copy and a digital download code. There are two versions of the film, the theatrical release and one more minute of action that qualifies it as an unrated director’s cut. The extras also include an optional opening with commentary from director James McTeigue and writer Ryan Engle, deleted extra scenes (again with commentary), a featurette on Gabrielle Union and female empowerment, a look at McTeigue’s take on the story, a piece on the action scenes, another look at Union and finally a full audio commentary track from McTeigue and Engle.

If you like having a very complete library and love Gabrielle Union, then you’ll want to add Breaking In to your library. Otherwise, you’ll probably want to catch the film on a streaming service.