Blue Streak (Blu-ray)

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In terms of action, there are two sequences that get the adrenalin going, and both of them are pretty standard as well, when it comes to cop pictures. There could have been more, and this also could have been consistently funnier. Lawrence is at his best and some of the laugh-out-loud moments come when he's acting more like a crook when he's supposed to be a cop, pounding people's heads against doors and giving the law-and-order crowd one big "our hero" gasp in the process. With a more original script, he could easily hang in there with Murphy. As long as they both stay out of fat suits, that is.

Video:
The 1080p picture (AVC/MPEG-4 transfer) looks pretty good in Hi Def, with bright, pleasingly saturated colors and strong black levels. The outdoor scenes even hold up pretty well, with a nice crisp silver look rather than the drab grays we sometimes get. There were no compression artifacts that I noticed, and no edge enhancement. Apart from a little noise in several frames, it's a clean-looking picture that delivers a good amount of detail. The aspect ratio is 1.85:1.

Audio:
The featured audio is a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix in either English, French, or Portuguese, with additional options in Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English SDH, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Indonesian. The big surprise here is that for an action-comedy with a rap soundtrack, the bass isn't more thumping. It's a pretty even mix that's not as dynamic as I would have thought.

Extras:
Not much here: just a pair of under-25 minute features, three music videos, and the original trailer. "HBO First Look: Inside and Undercover" is the typical talking-heads-on-the-set series of interviews interspersed with clips from the film, intended, of course, as a big promo teaser. "Setting Up for the Score" is another standard making-of feature that trots out the usual suspects for another blend of talking heads and clips. As for the music videos, there's one by Jay-Z ("Girls Best Friend"), another by Tyrese ("Criminal Mind"), and one by So Plush ("Damn, should have treated you right").


Bottom Line:
I like buddy cop flicks, and films like "Lethal Weapon," "Beverly Hills Cop," "48 Hours" and "Running Scared" best define a genre that's able to balance comedy and serious action-adventure. "Blue Streak" is a little light on the serious side, and it's way too familiar to be anything more than a decent evening's diversion. Whatever number you assign to "Beverly Hills Cop," this film scores one notch lower.

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