[Michael Osadciw]

Blu-ray Disc Review

27 DRESSES Distributor: 20th Century Fox Original Release: 2008 Length: 107 min Genre: Romantic/Comedy Film Rating: PG-13 Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Colour/B&W: Colour BD Specifications: Resolution: 1080/24p Video Codec: Disc Size: BD-25 Audio: English DTS-Master Audio 5.1 Surround French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Subtitles: English, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin

Release Date: April 29, 2008. Film Rating: / Starring: Katherine Heigl (Jane Nichols), James Marsden (Kevin Doyle), Written by: Aline Brosh McKenna Directed by: Anne Fletcher …always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Girls: now is your chance to cuddle up on a sofa and watch a movie with your man. Guys: just when you thought it was safe, another romantic comedy hits the Blu-ray shelves this week. Yikes! In 27 Dresses, Katherine Heigl stars as Jane Nichols, a woman who has spent most of her life being in wedding parties. She’s made a career in being reliable planning them and executing them so that the most important day in a woman’s life goes on without error. Jane sees nothing wrong with this life until newspaper columnist Kevin Doyle (James Marsden) points out that she’s living her life “always a bridesmaid” and has done nothing to set herself on a path of getting married. But both of these seem to scoff at marriage in their own way despite truly wanting to experience love and the events to follow. But Jane won’t admit to Kevin that there is a man she’s been eyeing: her boss. Things only get worse for Jane when her sister makes an unexpected visit from her carefree and unsettled life and moves in on the man Jane cares about most. But does he think the same of her? Will she support of demolish the relationship of two people she cares for? 27 Dresses has been hailed as “the ultimate romantic comedy” by CBS-TV, Atlanta, but I just can’t believe that writer was viewing the same film. While the film has its moments, they are few and far between and it certainly doesn’t top other romantic comedies that have been considered as mediocre. The writing just doesn’t feel polished and there is something not right with the sequence and presentation of the film…so my gut says. I guess it just falls into the bucket of films appealing to adolescents; girls will snicker about them and the guys will force themselves to watch on a first date while trying to keep down their popcorn. But that’s what we guys do for dating and what we keep doing to maintain our relationships for the rest of our lives. Life isn’t all about Aliens vs. Predator. VIDEO QUALITY: 3/5 In short, the presentation was not what I expected. For a new romantic comedy hot off the film reel, the image released for home video is rather, um…dull. Colours never seem to pop off the screen and instead seem confined to the closet where Jane keeps her bridesmaids dresses. But even when those closet doors open wide to the anti-marriage Kevin, I had a hard time wondering why he’d even bother photographing these dresses to begin with. If there was any vibrancy to these dresses, it was lost somewhere in post-production. I can’t say I’m pleased with the results. The image is much too warm to begin with and outdoor scenes seem to suffer the most from this giving everything a sunburned look. Video with excellent black level gives great image contrast and depth perception; I can’t say this is the case for 27 Dresses either. I felt like I was watching it on a monitor with incorrect gamma because the image didn’t look right from the midrange down. Image resolution was fair but it didn’t blow me away either. Compression or artificial edge artefacts didn’t appear to be a problem. The aspect ratio is 2.35:1. AUDIO QUALITY: 3/5 It’s enough to make audiophiles shake their head at in disappointment; the audio is flat and linear, and has no body or excitement. It is center heavy for both dialogue and sound effects, and the other channels aren’t utilized much at all save for a few sound effects. What’s worse is the music is about as lifeless as it can get, hardly making any impact for the overall audio experience. Bottom-end is ok and well suited for the mix. LFE isn’t effective for this film. TACTILE FUN!! ZERO / TACTILE TRANSDUCER ON/OFF?: OFF Nothing worth reporting. SPECIAL FEATURES: 1/5 The first three featurettes are HD and the last two are SD only. Most feature interviews with the director and producer (shot in SD) mixed with HD film clips and HD behind the scenes footage. The Wedding Party (14.31) – interviews, behind the scenes footage, clips of the film. Not much new here if you’ve watched the movie already. You’ll Never Wear That Again (6.46) – a talk with the costume designer regarding her creation of the 27 dresses for this film. Jane’s World (4.38) – how New York City was created from filming in Rhode Island. The Running of the Brides (5.05) – about a store’s annual event of discount wedding dresses. How about that? $5000 dresses for $249!! Road trip!! Deleted Scenes (3.58) – these scenes are SD windowboxed 2.35:1 - Jane Hails a Cab has Jane having her cab stolen by another woman, a funny scene of Tess’s Bridesmaid’s Dresses (and Jane’s got a rack to poke at), and lastly, The Rescue of Gatsby is a scene involving Tess accidentally sending George’s dog to a Humane Society rather than a daycare. Theatrical Trailers - Juno, The Devil Wears Prada and Mr. & Mrs. Smith are on this disc as forced trailers (not selectable in the menu)…but, where is 27 Dresses? I never understood this reasoning and it’s common on a few Fox BDs. IN THE END... The movie is somewhat entertaining and won’t bore. Its best left for a rental on a cuddle night with the lady. Single guys need not to rent. Michael Osadciw April 28, 2008. Review System