Blu-ray Movie Reviews

I’ve always wondered about Charlie Brown’s crush on the Little Red-Haired Girl. He’s of an age where girls are little more than a nuisance. But no matter: The Peanuts Movie’s plot centers on Charlie Brown’s stumbling attempts to convince her, and himself, that he’s something and not nothing.

Around this core, the filmmakers weave many of the classic themes Charles M. Schulz created for his classic comic strip: Charlie Brown’s issues with Lucy, the unseen adults that waa-waa-waa their way through their lines, the hazards of kite flying, Schroeder’s musical passions, Snoopy’s novelistic WWI flying fantasies, and more. This is one of the best animated films of the past year, and I was grinning and laughing from beginning to end.

The computer animation is compelling, but also subtle. The film- makers have carefully blended the inherently flat look of the comic strip with just a touch of the lifelike depth possible with modern CGI. What you’ll see here is clearly Peanuts and not Shrek.

The resulting images are exceptional—punchy, bright, and with richly saturated colors, particularly in the Red Baron’s tri-winged plane and Snoopy’s flying… um… doghouse. The UHD disc’s use of high dynamic range (HDR) is modest since most of the film is brightly lit, but a few darker scenes made limited use of it. The resolution was also never less than amazing on my 65-inch Samsung UHD set. The standard HD disc is also very good.

The sound only grabbed me intermittently (particularly in Snoopy’s aerial “battles”) but was never a negative. The well-recorded score harkens back to the music from the Peanuts television specials. The UHD disc (but not the HD disc) also includes Dolby Atmos (though I didn’t evaluate this for this review). Interestingly, the UHD disc is Dolby TrueHD, while the HD disc employs DTS-HD Master Audio. The latter was mastered at a dramatically lower level, and even after compensating for that (as closely as possible by ear), it was a bit less airy, detailed, and dynamic than the TrueHD version.

The extras include several Snoopy-themed shorts, music videos, and an impressive, 30-minute making-of feature. All of the extras are on the HD disc, apart from a long trailer for the next Ice Age sequel. This is on both discs, and the UHD version offers the most impressive use of HDR UHD video and dynamic audio in the entire package.

Blu-Ray
Studio: Fox, 2015
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio Format: Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Dolby Atmos
Length: 88 mins.
MPAA Rating: G
Director: Steve Martino
Starring: Noah Schnapp, Bill Melendez, Hadley Belle Miller