Abduction Blu-ray Review

Posted January 7th, 2012 by Brendan Surpless

Aspect Ratio: 2:35:1
Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH and Spanish Subtitles
Region: A (B? C?)
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 106 Mins
Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
Studio: Lionsgate
Blu-ray Release Date: January 17th, 2012
List Price: $35.99

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Overall

The Film

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Supplemental Materials

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All Blu-rayDefinition.com screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

Abduction tells the story of Nathan (Taylor Lautner), your average high schooler who enjoys living life with no worries. When he’s given an assignment involving missing children, he and his partner Karen (Lily Collins) stumble upon a website that digitally alters what missing kids may look like at an older age. Once such photo shows Nathan, much to his surprise. Soon, Nathan learns that his past just may be what he’s been told. What results is a film that has glimpses that it just may be a solid film, but ultimately fails due to many, many issues.

With a whopping 4% over at Rotten Tomatoes, I’ll admit I didn’t have much hope for Abduction. Well, the end result is that the film isn’t AS bad as other critics have said…but it still is pretty damn bad. The chief issue doesn’t necessarily lie with Taylor Lautner as many have stated. Lautner will never be a great or good actor. His performance felt very wooden and phoned in. It was almost as if he was told when to look tough and when to act worried. No, this wasn’t the problem. Dialogue was horrible here. Case in point comes in the sequence when the main villain Kozlow tells Nathan he’ll be responsible for the deaths of Nathan’s friends on Facebook if he doesn’t cooperate. WOW. I never thought dialogue would be so poorly constructed as to mention Facebook.

Another aspect that made me think this would be something worthwhile is the director, John Singleton. Having directed excellent (Boyz N The Hood), solid (Four Brothers) and even decent (2 Fast 2 Furious) films, I can’t help but wonder why on earth Singleton chose this as his next film. Was it for the money? Certainly he didn’t think that Lautner would be believable in the lead role, did he? Perhaps he thought the solid supporting cast (Alfred Molina, Jason Issacs, Sigourney Weaver and Maria Bello) would help make this rise above its problems. Whatever the reason may be, I guess the best way to look at Abduction is as follows: every once in awhile, everyone has a misstep in their career. Consider this to be Singleton’s.

Video Quality

The 2:35:1 framed, AVC/MPEG-4 encoded transfer is just as good as I had expected. The film’s palette does tend to have an overly bronzed approach to it (mostly to capture Lautner’s looks). Blacks are dark and inky while detail is rarely ever lost in darker moments. Speaking of detail, whether close ups of Lautner or exterior shots of Philadelphia, detail is impressive throughout. Shot using Panavision Primo Lenses according to IMDb, this transfer rarely falters. Grain is absent as are any other anomalies. The transfer has a very natural feel and look to it (well, minus that explosions at Nathan’s house. That just looked weird). All in all, this is a solid effort from Lionsgate.

Audio Quality

The film’s provided DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track is quite impressive, despite the film being so bad. The film’s dialogue may be laughable at times (no really you may just laugh), but it’s at least reproduced with fine results. Atmosphere is good as well with Lionsgate’s sound design creating a fine aural experience. Discrete effects, in particular during the moment where Nathan’s ‘parents’ are attacked, add in a grunt or bullet zipping by. LFE is active offering up solid, deep bass at times. While the film may be poorly made, one thing is clear, the provided DTS-HD track is far from poor.

Supplemental Materials

The included features are shown in HD:

“Abduction Chronicle” – This runs 18:17 and serves as your making of. Interviews with Lautner and other cast and crew members who openly discuss their involvement with the film.
“Initiation of an Action Hero” – Running 11:57, this shows exactly what Lautner did to prepare for this lead role.
“The Flight For The Truth” – At 12:01, this shows some of the film’s scenes with their counterpart storyboard scenes via more behind-the-scenes information.
“Pulled Punches” – This runs 3:37 and offers up a few ‘gags’, most of which aren’t funny at all.
Abduction Application: Blu-ray Enhanced Viewing Mode – This essentially takes the above 3 main features and splices them into the film as it runs.

The Definitive Word

Overall:

While Lionsgate has served up a fine Blu-ray A/V wise, the film is just so bad I can’t imagine anyone outside of Lautner’s cult of fans finding anything of true merit here. Skip this.