You Don't Mess with the Zohan (Blu-ray)

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Video:
I hadn't seen this in theaters and so I don't have that frame of reference to report how the Blu-ray compares, but I was surprised at how generally soft this film looks in 1080p (AVC/MPEG-4 codec). Colors aren't anywhere close to fully saturated, and in so many of he scenes it's almost as if there were a barely perceptible atmospheric haze hanging over the production. I didn't notice any artifacts, but maybe they were also hard to see because the black levels seemed low. The result is that there's no real sense of 3-dimensionality here. Like the film itself, the picture quality is disappointing.

Audio:
The audio is better, but the distribution of sound across the speakers isn't dynamic, and so the English or French Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks are nothing to write home about. The bass seems a little flat to my ears. There's an alternate soundtrack (Thai Dolby Digital 5.1) and subtitles in Indonesian/Bahasa, Korean, Thai, Chinese, French, English, and English SDH.

Extras:
The only Blu-ray exclusive bonus feature is a pop-up trivia track that didn't really engage me. The commentary track with Sandler, Robert Smigel, Rob Schneider and Nick Swardson is entertaining enough, but they cover all the usual bases and anecdotes (how people got into the project, what they were trying to do, how they approached their roles, etc.) and there's almost a self-consciousness of a color commentator, like, "Oh, we're supposed to be amusing as well as insightful." Then there's the director's track, with Dugan offering a more nuts-and-bolts approach.

Fans who are fascinated by the filming process might enjoy 15 behind-the-scenes featurettes that probably could have been assembled into one large bonus feature: Look Who Stopped By, Dugan, The Hand's on Director, The Stunts of Zohan, Dugan Espanol?, Zohan vs. the Phantom, Zohan's Doubles, Shooting Baja for Tel Aviv, All American Redneck, From Guns to Scissors, Three "News on 3" Reports, The Robot, Getting Sticky, and Laughing is Contagious. Everyone is going to have their favorites, but I always like to see the director at work and to see how they adapt a location to look like someplace clear on the other side of the world.

This disc is BD-Live enabled, and so consumers who buy this can go online to download additional features and also register their product in order to qualify for Sony's new Blu-ray Rewards Program.

Bottom Line:
Adam Sandler has a ball (pun intended) with this film, and we have almost as much fun as he does for the first half of the film. Maybe the jokes don't fire on all cylinders and maybe the finale fizzles, but a goofy and energetic Adam Sandler sizzles with his pelvic antics and his phony-baloney Israeli accent. And these days, who can't use a few laughs?

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