As I had said before, Charlie St. Cloud — which is based on the Ben Sherwood novel The Death And Life Of Charlie St. Cloud (a title they probably should have stuck with for this film adaptation in my opinion) — is fairly predictable. The film presents itself in a reasonably fine fashion overall (I’m guessing it had a rather modest budget), and its stars deliver some bright and believable performances (seriously, I was actually somewhat impressed by Zac’s acting!).
Despite the fact that the subject matter may leave viewers wondering what the hell they have stepped in, Charlie St. Cloud has its share of flaws in the “pacing” department. Sure, the movie is a breeze to sit through, but it seems to be missing something when it comes to utterly captivating its audience. Supporting characters wander into a few shots, recite a few lines of dialogue, and then disappear for good. Our main character’s plight, on the other hand, never really builds up the sense of mystery that it should have. And then, there’s our script, which has a “paint-by-numbers” feel to it: the writers apparently want you to walk away from this one with a feeling of emptiness rather than enlightenment.
While the movie itself may leave you with a somewhat unfulfilled feeling on the whole, Universal Studios’ Blu-ray release of Charlie St. Cloud at least makes up for some of it. The 50GB disc presents the movie in a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC transfer, preserving the movie’s 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Colors are extremely rich and lifelike here, from lush forest environments to the aqua-tones of the sea. Detail is also pretty plentiful here, and you can almost see where one of Zac’s brow hairs ends and another begins! The contrast here is also commendable, giving this slightly supernatural family flick a more believable appearance than it probably needs.
On the audio end of the High Def spectrum, Charlie St. Cloud boasts an notable DTS-HD Master Audio lossless 5.1 track. You wouldn’t think such a film would give your stereo setup a decent workout, but between the background effects, musical score (caution: there are modern pop songs included in the film’s soundtrack), and the vivid sounds found above and below sea level, Charlie St. Cloud delivers. The disc also includes French and Spanish DTS 5.1 soundtracks, and optional subtitles accompany the film in English (SDH), French and Spanish.
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