Mach 2

Starring:Brian Bosworth, Shannon Whirry, Bruce Weitz, Cliff Robertson, Lance Guest, Michael Dorn, David Hedison, Andrew Stevens, Robert Pine, Ai Wan, Clark Reiner, Jennifer Hammon, Amir Aboulela, Ron Chaney, John Putch, Nikki Fritz, Tom Simmons, John Michael Morgan, Jean-Paul Vignon, Jan Speck
Director: Fred Olen Ray
Studio: Paramount
Product Type: DVD

Super Speedway: The Mach II Special Edition IMAX (2-Disc WMVHD Edition)

Average customer rating:

Great behind the scenes documentary
Monster sound effects
Good, but....
EXCELLENT QUALITY THAT WILL PUSH YOUR SYSTEM TO ITS LIMITS
extremely fun, even if you are not a race nut

Super Speedway: The Mach II Special Edition IMAX (2-Disc WMVHD Edition)
Starring: Paul Newman
Director: Stephen Low
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000EOTWGA
Release Date: 2006-05-30

Amazon.com essential video

One of the best directors of IMAX films, Stephen Low (Titanica) has always been a race fan. After obtaining permission from CART, a governing body of Indy car racing and Newman/Haas racing (a Championship team co-owned by Paul Newman), Low found his stars for Super Speedway: the racing Andrettis, father Mario and son Michael. Mounting cameras fore and aft on the Andrettis' cars, IMAX offers a better vantage point than an ESPN camera, at a superior grade of clarity. Add to that the excellent sound and you can "feel" the bumps on the asphalt as the cars zoom in and out of corners. The large format can turn a pit stop into a dramatic 12 seconds as we see the driver's eyes dart away from his cockpit for a few brief seconds. We watch Michael Andretti on oval tracks and exciting road courses going over hills and sharp turns. There's even a spin--probably staged--from an angle we've never seen before.

Although true race conditions were impossible (the camera is just too bulky), Low sneakily edits his film to stretch the imagination. On race day, several Indy cars drove alongside the camera car hours before the main event, passing and drafting each other with crowds whizzing past them. When edited with footage of the race, it feels like the real thing. Low takes a few off-beat choices in setting up his story. The first image is the biggest chicken you've ever seen. The last shot is a '50s car (lovingly restored during the film) racing through perfect golden foliage on an autumn day. It gives his movie of modern technology a wonderful sense of nostalgia. --Doug Thomas

Amazon.com

Fasten your seatbelt and get ready for the ride of your life! Super Speedway puts you in the driver's seat of an Indy-type race car tearing up asphalt at speeds of over 230 miles per hour. Follow the excitement and drama of championship auto racing with narrator and celebrated actor Paul Newman, and join racing star Michael Andretti and his legendary father, Mario, as they craft a state-of-the-art race car. Then, follow the pulse-pounding action of Michael's high-speed quest for victory as he pushes the limits of the new car at the PPG CART World Series. So start your engines - Super Speedway is about to begin!

Ever wonder "how did they do that?" The Making of 'Super Speedway', shot on High-Definition Video, takes you behind the scenes, letting you explore the movie magic of making a groundbreaking documentary in the largest film format in the world. A revolutionary chapter selection menu gives you the option of jumping scene by scene from in front of the cameras to behind the lense.

Disc 2 includes the complete feature in Microsoft Windows Media High Definition, playable on your PC.

Customer Reviews:

Great behind the scenes documentary.......2007-04-05

This was a great documentary about what goes on behind the scenes in racing. The WVMHD looks great on my hi resolution computer monitor. Sound, action, and narration are all superb. Would recommend to anyone interested in knowing a little more about racing. Note: this film doesn't dig to deep into the technical side of car design or the underlying technologies, it merely scratches the surface.

Monster sound effects.......2007-03-08

Want to put your home theater to the ultimate test? This is one magnificently produced DVD. None can match it's raw viceral sounds of the Indy cars on the track. Crank it up and the sounds will go around the room as the car races thru the road course. The Andretti men are classic and weave a good story of a car found in a barn then restore it and run it again. Simply amazing photography and sound effects.

Good, but...........2002-08-05

As others have said, the DVD is great, and probably even better when seen in an actual IMAX theater. I think I found the making-of documentary actually more interesting than the feature itself. It was interesting to see the challanges of mounting a 70 lb IMAX camera on a car that was engineered and designed taking into account where every ounce is placed. Hanging 70lbs on it and still expect it to perform is quite a task.

I felt the audio was not accurately dubbed at some points. Too many/not enough gear shifts, mixing of two audio tracks with different engine RPM without a break in the video.

The biggest thing I had a problem with is the fact that it seemed several shots were sped up a bit to make it look more intense. Thats not cool. I hate when "World Scariest Police Chases" does it, but its expected from them. To have it done in a professionally done IMAX feature just is not acceptable. If you look at the on-car shots, watch Mario's head bouncing around. He doesn't have a natural movement- it moves to fast.

IMAX is supposed to bring the awe and adventure of things the normal everyday person will never experience. I feel there is a certain responsibility to bring it to us true, not buttered up.

EXCELLENT QUALITY THAT WILL PUSH YOUR SYSTEM TO ITS LIMITS.......2002-07-23

If you like race cars then you have to get this. An IMAX film, this documentary about racing in the CART league is of excellent quality. This really makes my sound system scream. You can literally feel the track surface when this is turned up. There is a making-of for the entire film, chapter by chapter, but unless you're the kind of person who can read a popular science from cover to cover you might not find it that exciting. Now that I have a 16x9 TV, I'll have to upgrade to the Mach II version of this DVD.

extremely fun, even if you are not a race nut.......2002-04-30

If you love open-wheel racing, you must see this DVD. Even if you don't you will find it both entertaining and mind-blowing to watch. This IMAX production follows the Newman-Haas CART team from the pre-season testing to a real race during the season. Veteran driver Mario Andretti as well as his son Michael take to the wheel of a specially-rigged CART racing car that has an IMAX camera attached to it. The footage is spectacular!
At the same time we get inisghts into the technology side of racing, with visits to the Lola and Cosworth factories in England.
Mario Andretti's first race car was the Watson roadster, and as a special treat in this movie we see him re-united with the very beautifully restored car.
The movie is narrated by Paul Newman and feautures interviews with the Andrettis as well as Paul Newman's co-team owner Carl Haas.

Average customer rating:

DOWN TO BOZNESS
Crashing and burning at way less than Mach 2
Twice the speed of sound?

Bosworth: Mach 2
Starring: Brian Bosworth , Shannon Whirry , Bruce Weitz , Cliff Robertson , and Lance Guest
Director: Fred Olen Ray
Manufacturer: Fox Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00013RC3Y
Release Date: 2004-02-03

Customer Reviews:

DOWN TO BOZNESS.......2004-10-05

MACH 2 entertained me and that's what I want in an action movie. Brian Bosworth is a quiet presence; when he acts "bland", it's bad acting; when Bruce Willis or Clint Eastwood play their blandness, it's called charisma or something else. With a fine supporting cast including Michael Dorn, Shannon Whirry, Lance Guest, Jean Paul Vignon, Cliff Robertson and David Hedison, I found this tense thriller interesting and was caught up in it. The prospect of starting wars to make the country more financially stable is nothing unheard of, and abord the Concorde, we get caught up in it too.
I think this was a nicely done B film.

Crashing and burning at way less than Mach 2.......2004-02-13

Synopsis:
Air Force Liaison Jack Tyree (Bruce Bosworth) is assigned to protect presidential candidate Stuart Davis (David Hedison) on his trip to Bosnia to try and secure the release of American prisoners of War. While en-route on a Concorde Jet, the plane is taken over by terrorists hired by Davis's political rival, Vice President Pike (Cliff Robertson), to kill everyone on the plane. Only Tyree stands between them and the corrupt Vice President Pike's clean sweep into the office of President.

If you think that sounds exciting, don't be fooled.

About the Movie:
For a low budget film, Mach 2's production values aren't that bad. The Concorde flight sequences are pretty nice to look at. It's hard to know if they're stock footage or not.

The problem isn't in the production values or special effects, it's a lot more simple than that. This movie has a kernel of potential that's utterly wasted by bad casting, bad editing and a dismal screenplay.

You know how sometimes when a book or movie is so poorly written that a person might say, "I could have written better than this?" It's usually said sarcastically, but in this case, it can be said with real sincerity. /I/ could have written a better screenplay than what was used here. In fact, I actually got frustrated at this movie for that reason. If this is the quality of writing that gets into B-rate movies these days, I ought to move to Hollywood. I'd clean up.

But on a more serious note, this is the poster child of what not to do in a movie. Honestly.

For one thing, Mach 2 simply had an extremely poorly constructed plot progression, so poor in fact, you wonder if it was written by someone who even knows anything about constructing a story. It meanders here and there, and worse, is so obvious pretty early about who the bad guy is that it completely blows any opportunity for suspense.

Then it makes matters worse by putting way too many characters into the mix. In this case, there are at least 6 sets of them all at the same time, with perhaps almost 20 speaking roles, many of them shoehorned into being roles that are supposed to be significant somehow. But there are so many characters that none of them really get much development. Then when we're supposed to care about certain characters being killed off, we don't at all because they were barely even introduced.

And worse, many of them are completely superfluous. At least a third could have been cut from the movie entirely with a little reworking and would have created a tighter movie overall. For example, the subplot of the two reporters out to get a scoop doesn't have any relation to the characters in the airplane at all. What results is a series of scenes that are completely inane, don't tell us anything we didn't learn from other characters, and instead just ate up screen time and slowed down the movie. Cut them completely and the movie wouldn't have been hurt at all. They weren't even needed!

Editing could only have helped a little with this. Even with the bad screenplay, better editing could have cleaned up the convoluted mess and made it flow together a little better. Still, given the content of the movie, it makes me wonder if the editor groaned when he saw what he had to work with.

Then there's the casting (spoiler warning). The worse of it was Michael Dorn, best known in his role as Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He plays the bad guy here. It comes as a surprise when it's revealed, but then the surprise is utterly wasted by his utter inability to be anything other than what he looks like, a hunkish, nice, clean-cut guy. So, his bad guy comes off as utterly laughable. I'm not saying he had to be psychotic in the role, but as it is he's so darn polite and nice to his hostages that you can't help but giggle at the silliness of his performance.

The Hero in Bruce Bosworth isn't horrible, but he's not great either, speaking out one-liners that are supposed be clever, but instead sound like he's utterly bored. It really gets bad in the attempted romance between him and the female lead. You end up with a hammy attempt at double entendres between a male lead who's as stiff as a board and an attractive female lead who comes off and not even wanting to touch him, despite what she's saying.

I could go on and on. (I haven't even touched on the soundtrack.) I mean, you don't expect high quality work when you talk direct to video b-list films, but this is really bad. Really, really bad. And it didn't have to be.

There are bad movies that are so bad they're funny. This one's so bad, it's frustrating. It's like they didn't even try.

About the DVD:
Mach 2 comes in a hard plastic snap case on a single sided DVD. The movie is presented in widescreen and Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. It has a single audio track, in English, and has optional Spanish Subtitles. Picture and sound are both pretty good.

Bottom Line: A budget movie on a budget DVD. This movie is horrible. Just terrible. Bad Bad Bad. 1 Star.

Twice the speed of sound?.......2001-03-16

Despite a good plot, I'm afraid that even with outstanding acting talent by just about all cast members, I found myself thinking that this was a movie that was a COULD HAVE BEEN GREAT MOVIE, but WASN'T, due to too many characters, too many non-essential scenes, too much confusion, and bad editing.

Once into the story (finally, after a subplot that should have been omitted to make the story tighter) it was fast paced and exciting, but even then it needed more intriege and believability.

The star of this film had little opportunity to be the real hero,and I found his part actually rather bland. Not his fault of course that he couldn't give it more 'omph' or 'pizzaz'.

Customer Reviews:

DOWN TO BOZNESS.......2004-10-05

Crashing and burning at way less than Mach 2.......2004-02-13

If you think that sounds exciting, don't be fooled.

About the Movie:
For a low budget film, Mach 2's production values aren't that bad. The Concorde flight sequences are pretty nice to look at. It's hard to know if they're stock footage or not.

But on a more serious note, this is the poster child of what not to do in a movie. Honestly.

There are bad movies that are so bad they're funny. This one's so bad, it's frustrating. It's like they didn't even try.

Bottom Line: A budget movie on a budget DVD. This movie is horrible. Just terrible. Bad Bad Bad. 1 Star.

Twice the speed of sound?.......2001-03-16

Once into the story (finally, after a subplot that should have been omitted to make the story tighter) it was fast paced and exciting, but even then it needed more intriege and believability.

The star of this film had little opportunity to be the real hero,and I found his part actually rather bland. Not his fault of course that he couldn't give it more 'omph' or 'pizzaz'.

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