Wedding Crashers (Blu-ray)

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Worse, the movie portrays Claire as sweet and smart but not smart enough to recognize that Sack (Bradley Cooper), the boyfriend she's been dating for several years, is an empty-headed macho jerk, something the audience sees in a minute. And as for Claire's sister Gloria, she thinks like an intellectually challenged twelve-year-old and behaves like a perpetual sex machine. With stereotypes like these, it's hard to get too interested in any of the peripheral characters. Then an uncredited guest star shows up late in the game playing the pair's hero, Chazz Reinhold, the author of the rules for wedding crashing, and he pretty much carries the picture from then on out.

Despite my reservations, "Wedding Crashers" goes a step beyond the usual romantic comedy with its buddy angle, and the opposing comedic styles of Wilson and Vaughn complement each other nicely, so it's amusing to see the two actors working together. If the movie tends to drift into the commonplace in its second half, well, so be it. There's still enough entertainment value in the proceedings to justify one's time.

Video:
Because this Blu-ray disc contains two versions of the film, a lossless audio track, and several bonus items, Warner/New Line decided to use a dual-layer BD50 to accommodate all the material. They also use a 1080p, VC-1 encode for the 2.40:1-ratio movie, resulting in a very clean, very clear, and reasonably well-detailed picture. What's more, the colors are deep and vibrant, but they're never overdone to the point of gaudiness; the black levels remain consistently deep; and a light film grain reminds one of being in a theater. Facial characteristics in close-ups can be somewhat soft, though, my only quibble. The fact is, much of the video looks downright gorgeous.

Audio:
The audio engineers provide an English-language soundtrack in both regular Dolby Digital and Dolby TrueHD 5.1. While there certainly isn't much here to reproduce beyond dialogue and musical backgrounds, the TrueHD is punchy enough to render even the most rambunctious pop tunes with authority. More important, the audio reproduces voices smoothly and naturally, and it imparts a pleasant sense of ambient bloom to the music. The surrounds do a decent job of picking up a few crowd noises, otherwise sticking to support for the musical score.

Extras:
Undoubtedly, the main "extra" on the disc is getting two movies, the regular theatrical edition and a special "Uncorked" extended version, which provides an additional eight minutes of footage. I can't say the additional minutes improve the film, but it pleases me that Warner/New Line chose to include both versions. Choice is always good. Both versions of the film come with commentaries, one commentary with stars Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn and the other with director David Dobkin. In both cases, the participants seem to have made their theatrical commentaries first and then added in their "Uncorked" comments later.

Besides the two versions of the film, we get four deleted scenes, with optional director commentary, totaling about eight minutes; two making-of featurettes, "Event Planning," eleven minutes, and "The Rules of Wedding Crashing," seven minutes; and a dreadful music video, "Circus," by The Sights.

Things finish up with twenty scene selections but no bookmarks; a teaser and a theatrical trailer; pop-up menus; English as the only spoken language; Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Thoughts:
Although "Wedding Crashers" is just as predicable as any other romantic comedy, at least it's got Owen Wilson's easygoing sincerity and Vince Vaughn's facile insincerity to carry it along. The two actors make a good contrasting team and bring an energy to the story that many romantic comedies lack. The fact that the movie made me laugh any number of times helps, too.