Blu-ray Movie Reviews

My wife had been pretty excited about seeing this one. We've been seeing trailers for it on several Blu-ray discs from Fox. Both of us are romantic comedy fans and we both really enjoyed Katherine Heigl's work in the recent Knocked Up. Unfortunately this one was a bit of a disappointment. It has a few good laughs but was weak on the romance and we didn't connect with the characters at all. Heigl is good but the rest of the characters were a bit one dimensional and I think this could have been the most cut and dry performance to date from Ed Burns. With so many great romantic comedies out there, I would suggest looking elsewhere on date night.

Fox delivers a high bitrate AVC encode for this one but honestly it is a bit hit or miss. Compression is never an issue but the photography style makes for an uneven presentation. There are a lot of scenes that just look out of focus or smeared, and you can tell it is a lens effect from the camera. It happens far more than I would have preferred. Some of the darker scenes are inconsistent as well. Darker scenes can look a bit flat at times and a little on the noisy side. This wouldn't be that much of a big deal if the same scene didn't cut to a different angle that looked ten times better with plenty of detail and dimension. The brighter scenes look good though and there are moments when dimension and depth are excellent with vivid color and superb fine detail.

The DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is typical of this genre but fun nonetheless. I liked most of the soundtrack selections and really they were the only thing dynamic about the mix. Sure there is plenty of ambience and atmosphere and the surrounds aren't neglected, but this is a dialogue driven soundtrack that stays mainly in the front soundstage.

A couple good extras here including some deleted scenes and a few themed features that provide a look at the production of the film and some of its themes. Most of it is promo fluff, but some of its fun.

It is too bad this one came up short. The trailers did look good, but the story is a bit too predictable. While a rental might not be a bad way to go if you have to see it, I couldn't in good faith recommend a purchase, even for fans of the genre.