Men In Black (Superbit Collection) (1997)

· Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub

· Directed by: Barry Sonnenfeld

· Studio: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

· Video: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

· Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, English DTS 5.1

· Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Thai

· Extras: Scene selection

· Length: 98 minutes

· Rating: ****

Agents Jay and Kay are members of a top secret government organization formed to monitor and police extra-terrestrial life on Earth. Cause for great concern arises when a giant alien cockroach arrives on an evil mission to assassinate ambassadors from opposing galaxies and steal a miniature galaxy being hidden here. Agents Jay and Agent Kay are summoned to not only to save the day but also save the entire planet Earth.

The video quality of this Superbit release is by far the best of all of the previous DVD releases for this film. Images are clean and finely detailed. Blacks are dark throughout and flesh tones are natural in appearance. Colors are faithfully reproduced with fully saturated hues. Picture defect mastering is perfect with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts. The overall audio quality is outstanding with the English DTS 5.1 track serving as the basis for this review. The soundtrack mix actively utilizes all of the discrete channels with nice channel separation. The forward soundstage is spacious and wide. Dialogue is natural sounding and properly anchored in the center channel. The surround channels are often aggressive, used for both music and ambient sounds, and include multiple split rear effects. The low frequency bass is deep, explosive and also receives a decent workout from the numerous sound effects and vibrant Danny Elfman score. Present in about one-third of the DVD’s chapters, tactile effects appear as light to heavy impacts and originate from the sound effects and music score.

Reference equipment used for this review: [Video projector- Studio Experience Cinema 17SF Projection screen- Da-Lite 106” Da-Snap; DVD player- Pioneer Elite DV-37; A/V Receiver- Sherwood Newcastle R-963T; Speakers- BIC DV62si mains, DV62CLRs center, Adatto DV52si rears, D1210R subwoofer; Tactile Transducers- Clark Synthesis Gold; Video Switcher- Key Digital SW4x1; Cables and Wires- Bettercables.com]