Heartbreak Kid, The (Blu-ray)

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Final note: When DreamWorks released "The Heartbreak Kid" to theaters, it carried an R rating for "strong sexual content, crude humor and language." Here on Blu-ray, it continues with an R rating, yet we also find the following message preceding the movie: "This film has been modified from its original theatrical version. It has been edited for content." Make of that what you will.

Video:
It's hard to find fault with the dual-layer BD50, 1080p, MPEG4/AVC transfer. Indeed, it's so good it tends to reinforce my axiom that the worse the movie, the better the video quality. The transfer retains the movie's 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio and the movie's robust colors. Indeed, the colors are so bright and vivid, they fairly pop off the screen, which is perhaps a bit too much of a good thing because they are brighter and more vivid than real life. I suppose the colors are appropriate, though, for a comedy that exaggerates life the way this one does. Definition is good, skin tones are natural, clarity is exceptional, and black levels are deep. Interior detailing is also good, and from a normal viewing distance the picture looks downright gorgeous.

Audio:
The English track's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sounds fine, given that it has virtually nothing to do but reproduce dialogue and some fragments of forgettable background music. It handles the job nicely, with overkill the order of the day.

Extras:
The Blu-ray disc contains the usual assortment of extras, some of them even having to do with the movie. The first thing up is an audio commentary by the film's directors, the Farrelly brothers. They're surprisingly serious; somehow, I expected them to be joking through the whole commentary. Next is a series of four featurettes. The first is "The Farrelly Brothers in the French Tradition," about sixteen minutes long, providing a little history of the brothers in filmmaking. Second is "Ben & Jerry," five minutes about the Stillers, father and son, working together. Third is "Heartbreak Halloween," three minutes about a Halloween party the cast and crew had on the set. And fourth is "The Egg Toss," eight minutes about the egg tosses on the set. Then there's a gag reel, four minutes, and six deleted scenes, about seven-and-a-half minutes. All of these items are in standard definition.

Things conclude with sixteen scene selections and bookmarks; a high-def theatrical trailer; a guide to elapsed time; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
If this new Farrelly brothers version of Neil Simon's "The Heartbreak Kid" does anything good, it may be to send viewers out looking for the original 1972 movie. That one wasn't the height of comedic genius, but at least it wasn't as joyless as this depressingly downbeat remake.

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