Panning effects and sound effects placement are never less than convincing. Some chopper scenes will have you looking over your shoulders for the blades that're cutting through the air and approaching your scalp. The rear stage is also very impressive in the way it integrates with the forward mains during the numerous boisterous scenes in the feature, as well as the manner in which it helps establish setting with more subtle, convincing ambient sounds like gusts of wind, soft breezes, snow crunching underfoot, and ice cracking and giving way. You re there, friends. You are there.
Dialogue is very well recorded and nicely integrated.
Imaging within the phantom zones between the center channel and left and right mains helps establish proper relationships between characters and their surroundings. James Newton Howard s exciting, hyper score is also very well recorded and well distributed about the surroundstage. This is a very impressive DD track from Columbia Tristar. With all the chatter it will generate on the Net, it s very possible some home theater enthusiasts will buy a copy of the DVD just to hear it. Oh well I guess that s one good reason to sit through another formulaic, pyrotechnic extravaganza.