Morning Light Blu-ray Review

Morning Light

Blu-ray Review
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Release: June 16, 2009

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has come out with the release of Morning Light on Blu-ray, showcasing a documentary you will not soon forget.

“Morning Light” is a true documentary that takes you through the inspiring story of a group of 15 young sailors that go through six months of intense training for the biggest race of their lives.

Racing a high-performance 52-foot sloop in the TRANSPAC, the most respected of open-ocean sailing competitions, the crew of “Morning Light” matches wits and skills in a dramatic 2,300- mile showdown against top professionals.

If you’ve ever seen a reality show then you wont be surprised by the movies set up. There’s a countdown on screen to help remind of how long they have before the big day.

A lot of the time is spent on talking about the race and not enough on the people sailing. So unless you’re an experienced sailor you may not be as intrigued by the story. It would have been nice to get a feel for how those not chosen for the race felt or how the only female on the boat was dealing with the ten other males.

The video quality for this Blu-ray release is quite strong considering it is a documentary.

The film looks respectable in 1080p, per usual from Disney as the film was shot with HD digital cameras.

There are some areas where there is a bit of grain in spots, but for the most part we get a very clean presentation in 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

The same can be said for the audio which comes with a pleasing soundtrack, very engrossing.

There is good use of front and rear channels to capture the atmosphere in a 5.1 DTS-HD track. Don’t expect perfection though due to the way the film was shot.

The Blu-ray release comes with some quality extras, starting out with “Morning Light: Making the Cut” as aired on ESPN. This contains everything that the feature documentary is lacking as it delves deeper into the story, picking up the difficulty of the initial thirty people chosen to compete for the eleven spots. We are introduced to the competitors, and are flies on the wall as they are put through their paces and eventually whittled down to the fifteen found in the movie.

The second big featurette included is known as Stories from the Sea with Host Jason Earles. This looks at various areas of the film with some additional behind-the-scenes looks at areas of the adventure. There are some good making-of additions in here as well.

Morning Light is an entertaining documentary that does a good job of pulling you in for a wild ride across the ocean. In the end though it just lacks that something extra to be considered a must-see.

Film: 6.5 Leaves something to be desired

Video: 7.8 Not perfect, but very strong cosidering the way it was shot.

Audio: 8.0 Same as with the video, good soundtrack.

Extras: 7.5 More Blu-ray exclusives would have been nice, but good stuff overall.

Final: 6.8