Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [Blu-ray]

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

• Studio: New Line Cinema/Warner Home Video

• Theatrical Release Year: 2009

• US DVD Release Date: September 22, 2009

• Rated: PG-13 (for sexual content throughout, some language, and a drug reference)

• Running Time: 100 minutes

• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 anamorphic

• Audio: English (Dolby TrueHD), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)

• Subtitles: English (SDH), Spanish

Movie: 2.5 out of 5

Matthew McConaughey is Connor Mead, a top fashion photographer and major playboy who changes girlfriends as often as most people change their underwear. As the movie opens, he has conferenced three women in a chat room to announce he is breaking up with them, while his next conquest looks on. At his brother Paul's (Breckin Meyer) wedding rehearsal dinner, after delivering a monologue saying marriage is a worthless institution and that love is not real, his late Uncle Walter (Michael Douglas, looking more like his father Kirk) explains to Connor that he will be visited by three ghosts to lead him through his past, present, and future romantic relationships.

Combining Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol story with a modern-day romantic comedy may have looked good on paper, especially at the pitching stage, but director Mark Waters Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, from a screenplay by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover), falls desperately short. Jennifer Garner is Jenny, Connor's first and only true love that he let get away, and part of the problem is that the two have very little chemistry together, and Garner's performance leads me to believe that she felt out of place in this story. Emma Stone as the Ghost of Girlfriends Past (and Connor's first conquest) is very funny, but the entire Past sequence spends more time glorifying the many conquests that when Stone's character says to Connor that he's probably missing the entire point of the flashbacks, you wonder if the writers and director are, too.

The bridesmaids, played by Rachel Boston, Camille Guaty, and Amanda Walsh, are stereo-typical sorority sisters who are just as horny and eager to have sex as Connor. This movie would have you believe that just about everyone who attends a wedding will get laid before the reception ends. But the real problem with the film is Connor, a womanizing, demeaning jerk, so much so that by the end of the movie, I felt no sympathy for him, nor did I feel he deserved the redemption he received.

Video: 3.5 out of 5

The 1080p transfer, encoded using the VC-1 codec, is properly framed in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio. The print used is clean and blemish-free, with well-saturated colors, accurate flesh tones, and inky blacks. Overall, it's what I would expect from a recent theatrical release, but not exactly reference quality, either. The transfer does its job, and that's about it.

Audio: 3 out of 5

Like most comedies, the Dolby TrueHD soundtrack provided is front heavy, with some use of surrounds and stereo separation for music and ambiance. Dialogue is intelligible.

Special Features: 2 out of 5

Three featurettes and a set of deleted scenes round out the bonus materials, which are exclusive to the Blu-ray release. All but the deleted scenes are in high definition.

Recreating The Past, Imagining The Future: In less than nine minutes, this EPK piece whisks us through the different eras depicted in the film.

It's All About Connor: Four minutes of interviews with the women in the film discussing working with Matthew McConaughey.

The Legends, The Lessons, and The Ladies: Matthew McConaughey and Michael Douglas discuss their characters in this eight minute EPK fluff piece.

Deleted Scenes: Consisting mostly of extended scenes, running just under ten minutes total, proving they were better off left on the cutting room floor.

BD-Live: As with most Warner Blu-ray releases these days, this disc is BD-Live enabled, providing access to their BD-Live portal. As of press time, there were no exclusive BD-Live features for this title, although the press release indicated that the site would include a behind the scenes featurette on the infiniti room filled with all of Connor's past conquests, A Sea Of Women.

Digital Copy: Warner has included both iTunes and Windows Media Player compatible versions of the film on a second disc that can be synched to your portable media device.

Overall: 2.5 out of 5

What could have been an inspired romantic comedy is instead a tired, mean-spirited, and ill-conceived attempt to make a contemporary, non-Christmas version of Charles Dickens classic story of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Video and audio are on par with most other recent theatrical releases, and the bonus features are a bit on the fluff side.