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Days of Thunder is directed by Tony Scott, produced
by Jerry Bruckheimer, and stars Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman,
and Robert Duvall. ***
Days of Thunder follows the life of an up-and-coming
young and cocky race car driver (Cruise), determined to
be the best. The film follows his struggle to be number
one, as he encounters a love interest (Kidman) and his often-strained
relationship with the race track’s chief mechanic (Duvall.)
***
Days of Thunder should have been entitled “Days of
Plagiarism” or “Top Gun at the Race Track.” The film plagiarizes
the high-flying classic in every way imaginable, trying
to disguise it as a racing film. The cast will instantly
look familiar, as it has Top Gun’s director, producer, and
star. Even the actors that didn’t participate in Top Gun
are more-or-less carbon copies of its characters. This is
a poorly-disguised sham of a film that doesn’t stand the
test of time the way the film does that is being ripped
off here. ***
Days of Thunder has a ton of flaws Top Gun didn’t –
paper-thin characters, a predictable storyline, and a dated
filming style. Okay, okay. Maybe Top Gun wasn’t innocent
in all those areas either, but at least it doesn’t take
the flaws to the next level the way Thunder does. How Robert
Duvall, who brought us classic characters like Tom Hagen
and Augustus McCrae, was conned into doing this movie I
will never know.
Image and Sound:
This is a weak transfer. The image quality is inconsistent,
often looking grainy and dirty throughout. There are a few
shots in the movie that look fantastic, but they’re too
few and far between. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear
they just took the old DVD transfer and slapped it on a
Blu-Ray without much revamping. Audio features a TruHD track,
but it’s very front-heavy and weak compared to similar films
from the same studio and era.
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