The Heartbreak Kid Blu-ray Review

by Casimir Harlow
Movies & TV Shows Review

The Heartbreak Kid Blu-ray Review
MSRP: £18.59

Picture

Heartbreak Kid comes to Blu-ray looking absolutely smashing, hitting the shelves with a 1080p High Definition video rendition in the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio of widescreen 2.35:1, quite a broad scope for a comedy release. Detail is fantastic throughout, clarity consistent, with no sign of any softness, nor grain, nor any digital artefacting whatsoever. Colours are also presented superbly on this release, made marginally easier by the fact that the settings are rich, which offers up myriad bright scenery for viewers to chew upon. The sun-drenched beach Honeymoon locale looks absolutely tremendous, with green palms both rich and vivid, the gorgeous ocean boasting clear blue backdrops and the sunsets to die for. Blacks are also solid - check out Stiller's black t-shirt - and this allows for decent night sequences and good shadowing. Overall it is a superb, near-benchmark video presentation.
The Heartbreak Kid

Sound

To accompany the sparkly video rendition we get a solid Dolby TrueHD track that offers up superior technical capabilities that are only restricted by the limitations of the comedy material itself. Dialogue comes across clearly and coherently, largely emanating from the fronts and centre channels. Effects are - as aforementioned - limited by the material, so what we get is keen observation of waves crashing and beach party crowds to give you an authentic feel to the honeymoon location. The score is quite boisterous, with plenty of song snippets throughout the affair (particularly during the karaoke montage) and live bands entertaining the couples with annoyingly enthusiastic accompaniments, bringing up the rears with some gusto. There is little bass, as you might expect given the narrative, but overall it is the best possible presentation you could expect for this comedy vehicle.
The Heartbreak Kid

Extras

We get a huge selection of extra features, including a full-length Audio Commentary by the Writer/Director Farrelly Brothers where they sit back and actually offer up some insight into their new take on comedies, which relies marginally less on gross-out humour and is slightly more mature. Whilst they do crack a few jokes, it's generally a solid, informative offering which fans will get plenty from.

The eight Deleted Scenes only come to a total of six minutes, and are quite funny really. None of them (apart from maybe the car scene where Eddie plays back his amusing voicemail messages) really warrant re-insertion into the main feature (and they are all absolutely appalling quality) but if you enjoyed the movie then it's probably worth checking them out. The Gag Reel is four minutes of pretty consistently crude line goofs and is also worth watching, although a little variation might have been nice. (It does however reveal that there were some alternate sequences filmed which did not even make the Deleted Scenes, featuring Michelle Monaghan in the arms of a long-haired Ben Stiller.)

We also get four fairly short Featurettes - The Farrelly Brothers in The French Tradition being the longest, at sixteen minutes, and thus the most substantial, where we get some behind the scenes footage and detail into the script and filming process. Ben and Jerry has the Stiller father-and-son duo on tap for a short chat, Heartbreak Halloween is a video diary of the cast and crew's Halloween party and The Egg Toss is literally what it says it is - video footage of the egg toss competition staged for the cast and crew. The latter two Featurettes are pretty worthless. Finally we get a Theatrical Trailer to round off the disc.
The Heartbreak Kid
Heartbreak Kid may have its faults, but it stands out as an original, solid comedy vehicle for Ben Stiller, rich with interesting characters, relatable situations and crazy wacky gross-out moments to spice things up. Not taking as many risks as they usually do, it appears the Farrelly brothers have grown up a little and given us a more mature variation on the outdated approach that they used to do best. On Blu-ray we get a fantastic video rendition and a superior audio track limited only by the material on offer, together with a mixed bag of largely decent extras, all of which come together to create a package that fans will fail to resist and which should tempt newcomers - particularly those who like Stiller's work.

Scores

Movie

.
.
8

Picture Quality

.
9

Sound Quality

.
.
8

Extras

.
.
8

Overall

.
.
8
8
AVForumsSCORE
OUT OF
10

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