I watched War of the Worlds last night. I actually enjoyed it a bit more than I expected, though the casting was a bit wonky. I actually would have preferred a entire cast of unknowns.
But that's not what I'm hear to gripe about. Who the heck mixed the sound? Helen Keller? I've never heard a more poorly mixed dvd in my life. Seriously. There were scenes where the score was inappropriately hushed, dialog was consistently way, way, way low. The only thing they cranked up were sound effects. Exposions, etc were ungodly loud - due mostly to the fact that you had to turn the volume up so loud to hear the dialog.
I can almost understand that - IF the point was that the fx were supposed to be ungodly loud. But how do you explain the hushed score? There was one scene in particular (when he's rushing down the freeway in the only working car) that the score literally sounded like someone had simply turned the volume down.
Very odd. Sound mixing is one of those things when done right, you shouldn't notice. Having to screw around with the remote through the entire movie was not fun.
Grrr...
