THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION

DreamWorks Home Entertainment

Widescreen DVD, $32.99

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion takes place in 1940 in New York.  As his firm's top insurance investigator, CW Briggs prides himself on being able to solve any insurance caper by getting into the thief's mind.  When a couple of huge jewel thefts take place, Briggs must once again rise to the occasion.  Making things difficult, however, is that all clues point to him as the culprit and his job is already on the line with the firm's new efficiency expert.             

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion stars Woody Allen, Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, Charlize Theron, David Ogden Stiers, Wallace Shawn and Brian Markinson.  The movie was written and directed by Woody Allen and produced by Letty Aronson.  Released theatrically in 2001, it is rated PG-13 with a feature running time of 102 minutes.           

This DVD is presented in an anamorphic widescreen version (1.85:1).  The overall quality of the transfer is excellent.  Images are clean and colors are rich with fully saturated hues.  There is solid contrast and dark black levels.  Picture defect mastering is perfect with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts that we could detect.

Video Rating: 9 out of 10

The following spoken language options are available on this disc: English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital mono.  The following subtitle tracks are available on this disc: English closed captions.  The English Dolby Digital mono track is the basis for this review.  Given that this is a mono mix, there is no surround channel information or discrete directional effects.  However, dialogue is crisp, natural sounding and free of any distortion.

Audio Rating: 5 out of 10

The tactile sound effects for this DVD appear only in the form of subtle sensations and are present in about one quarter of the chapters.  The best example of its tactile information, outside of the music soundtrack, is the exploding fireworks taking place in chapter 21.  

Tactile Sound Effects Rating: 5 out of 10

Bonus features include cast & crew bios; production notes; theatrical trailer and chapter search.

Bonus Features Rating: 5 out of 10