Written by Matt Swider  on July 08, 2008

Specials: BD-Live, for the first time, makes a Special Feature worth checking out, whether or not you love a movie.

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Hancock was on top of this weekend's box office despite the mixed reviews of Will Smith's latest July 4th movie debut. Eleven years ago, Men in Black, another movie starring Smith, was in the same spot but got much more acclaim. With the advent of superior Blu-Ray discs, this sci-fi classic receives a much needed high-definition update, not only allowing us to rewatch it, but giving us the Neuralizer treatment when it comes to Agent J's recent movie role shortcomings.

MIB on Blu-Ray features some Уout of this worldФ extras starting with its support of BD-Live, the brand new interactive specification for web-enabled features. Like Division 6, you probably don't know much about the abilities of BD-Live since MIB is the first movie to use the updated profile. Its inclusion here tests your knowledge in multiplayer trivia if your Blu-Ray player, in our case a PS3, is connected to the Internet.



Are you УThe best of the best of the best, sir?Ф The eight-player, interactive trivia game, dubbed Intergalactic Pursuit, asks you and your Internet rivals anywhere from 5 to 25 fast-paced questions about the movie and its sequel. By Уfast pacedФ we mean you have just ten seconds to answer and, even if you do correctly select one of the four multiple choice answers, you only get the maximum amount of points if you correctly buzz in immediately. Taking a wild guess sometimes pays off as points decrease with time.

The challenging questions include a lot of video clips, quizzing you on the name of a newspaper being delivered in one scene and asking you to finish one of Will Smith's most memorable lines in another. When he says УYou know the difference between you and me?Ф and puts on the black Ray-Bans, you know it's something like УI make this look good,Ф but there's also УI make this look really good,Ф that sounds very close. The first phrasing is the correct answer to this tricky question.



Video clips questions are the most enjoyable type followed by the text-only ones that delve into the character information and actor detail: УWhere did Tony Shalhoub grow upФ and УWhich of these movies didn't star Tommy Lee Jones.Ф While special features often come up short in offering anything of real value to the average moviegoer, BD-Live's interactive elements in this case prove that it's possible to add extra content for everyone and not just diehard fans of a particular movie. And, judging from the amount of players logged into MIB's trivia game while testing it early in the morning, a lot of people seem to agree.

The reason that Intergelatic Pursuit is successful is that the quiz is presented a lot like a video game. You type in your name and join a tournament, jump directly into a random match via quickplay or host your own tourney by setting the number of players and questions. Sure, the slick menus and the control over which of the four multi-choice answers you select could've been done with a DVD remote on last-generation technology. However, the real-time interactive element connecting you to people around the country is what makes this only possible using something more advanced like BD-Live.



The debut of BD-Live is bright and one can only hope that its future is even more dynamic as film and video game content converge. In this case, it's reminiscent of the Scene It games and works well. There are some ways in which it could work even better, of course. Being able to save your player's name instead of returning to the default Player 1, adding a counter to let you know how many questions are left in a tournament and keeping statistics over time are simple things that would go a long way in keeping our Blu-Ray disc drives busy.