Fight Club is one of those movies you either love or hate. You either warm to its dark humor and nihilism or get turned off by it. The love-hate line isn't defined by gender or generation either. Both of my parents really liked Fight Club and bought it on DVD and later "D-Theater" D-VHS. Subjective opinion aside, Fight Club is an ambitious, mind-bending vision from David Fincher based on the novel from Chuck Palahniuk. The movie further elevated the acting careers of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The supporting cast (Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf Aday, Jared Leto and many others) is well above average. Even the bit players get some great lines: "here's where the infant went through the windshield: three points."

I won't waste time going over the storyline of Fight Club other than saying it covers similar ground as a few other movies released at the end of the 1990s, such as the Oscar-winning American Beauty. The difference with Fight Club is it's a lot more fun to watch.

On Blu-ray Fight Club isn't pretty, but it looks great. This is one of those movies I've always wanted in high definition, but I feared the catalog title might be fouled by a less expensive, less sophisticated video master. This new Blu-ray is a very nice upgrade from any of the previous DVD versions (or even D-VHS if you have one of those D-Theater setups). This movie is dark on purpose with very deep black levels and desaturated, earthy colors. Image detail, particularly in close up shots on actors, has the appropriate level of pop. A natural but not terribly obvious looking layer of grain is present in most scenes. I think the Blu-ray version of Fight Club has been sourced from a film-scanned master. The picture is very steady with very little, if any, side-weave. The opening and end titles are clean, crisp and steady, a common trait for movies processed with film scan and digital intermediate techniques.

Even in the early years of DVD Fight Club boasted demo-worthy audio to punish any surround sound system. The audio quality on the Blu-ray version is even better with its new DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Channel separation and surround imaging is improved. More subtle layers of detail are coming through in the mix. The music, much of it from The Dust Brothers, pounds harder. Fight Club was one of the first movies mixed for Dolby Digital Surround EX. And this is probably the only area where I think anyone could bring up a gripe. Why no 6.1 or 7.1 discrete mix? Oh well. It's still a great audio track even if it is only 5.1.

Many of the extras from the old SE DVD have been ported to the new Fight Club Blu-ray. Unfortunately they're non-anamorphic SD. I didn't expect HD upgrades for all of that stuff, but it would have been nice to see the trailers and perhaps the music video upgraded to HD. The newly added extras are in HD quality. Footage from Spike TV's Man Awards Show is worthy of repeat viewings. The sound mixing extra "A Hit in the Ear" is interesting, but kind of crude. If you've ever played with ProTools, Adobe Audition or Apple's Soundtrack Pro you probably wouldn't play with this sound mixing extra more than once or twice.

Much has been said about the opening, prank menu. I wish I had not known about the joke before getting the Blu-ray. It's still funny. I have shown it off to friends and coworkers without saying anything to get their "WTF?" reaction. That's even more funny. I love the 360 degree panning view that alternates between Jack's yuppie condo and Tyler Durden's dungeon. I just wish I could pause the menu so I could read all the funny labels. PS3 owners should get a laugh out of the thumbnail image the movie shows in the XMB menu.

My biggest complaint with Fight Club on Blu-ray is its package design. Fox hit a home run with the original 2-disc DVD package. Where is the "How To Start A Fight" booklet? Where's all the wild artwork? Instead, we get a somewhat flimsy paperboard case (with a big UPC hole cut in the back). The actual plastic Blu-ray case has a bunch of "environmentally friendly" holes formed through it. What's going on there? I'm not planning on throwing this thing into a land fill.

Anyway, I highly recommend the new Blu-ray version of Fight Club. As of this writing, the disc can be had for an unusually LOW price of $15.99. Just a couple months ago, $25-$30 pricing was normal for both catalog and new release Blu-ray discs. Fight Club may be part of a new, very hard push to shove Blu-ray into the "mainstream."