Every now and then, a movie comes out of nowhere to become a big hit, catching the critics and studios by surprise. This summer it was the subject of this review, The Hangover. Perhaps audiences were looking for some lighthearted comedy in today’s tough economic times. Whatever the reason, this film was a huge commercial success, grossing well over 10 times its cost of $35 million. I guess I was one of the few who didn’t see The Hangover in theaters as I can’t say that the subject matter appealed to me very much. However, when the Blu-ray arrived for review, I didn’t hesitate to pop the disc into the player to see what the fuss was all about. Much to my surprise, I found the film to be enjoyable although far from a comedy classic.

Film

All in all, I found The Hangover to be a better film than I had been anticipating, being a good bit funnier than most films featuring rather crass and over the top comedy. The film’s plot is fairly simple. A coupe of days before his wedding, Doug (Justin Bartha) and his buddies Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and his future brother-in -law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) drive to Las Vegas in Doug’s soon to be father-in-law’s shiny Mercedes for a couple of days of partying before the wedding, a bit of an extended bachelor party if you will. However, after they arrive, all the wheels fall off with Phil, Stu and Alan awaking the next morning in a stupor in their trashed suite without Doug, who they can’t seem to locate.

In addition to not knowing where Doug was, they had no recollection whatsoever of the prior night’s happenings and spend the rest of the film trying to retrace their steps the best the could to see how they lost Doug so they can locate him and rush him back to LA for his wedding. Not wanting to give too much of the plot and surprises away, these guys really know how to party and really get themselves into a boatload of trouble with the police as well as local gangsters. They even run afoul of Mike Tyson who makes a very funny appearance as himself in the film.

While I enjoyed the film, I can’t really imagine myself watching the film multiple times. I would therefore only rate this film as a rental. However, if you are looking for a light comedy with plenty of slapstick action and sometimes crude sexual humor, The Hangover, may just fit the bill. For reference, I watched the unrated version of the film. It was readily apparent to me while watching which scenes and segments of scenes did not make the theatrical release.

Video

After watching so many visually stylized films in the recent past, it was a pleasure to watch a film with as natural a look and color palette as The Hangover. While I watched in its entirety only the unrated version of the film, I did compare it briefly with the theatrical version and they looked identical. Hence my comments on the video quality are applicable to both versions of the film presented on this release.

The film features a very natural color palette with plenty of bright and well saturated primary colors. Skin tones were rendered beautifully as well. Blacks were fairly deep and stable although not quite as inky as some of the best looking films I have seen. Detail, clarity and depth of field were all excellent. I did not detect any evidence of edge enhancement or digital noise reduction. facial and background details were rendered very well. Overall the image presented on this release is clear and highly detailed without much in the way of intermittent softness that one often sees in films, especially during dark interior or night time scenes. I have no doubt that fans of the film will be very happy with the image presented on this Blu-ray release of The Hangover. I know I was.

Audio

While I was impressed with the video quality, I can’t say that I was all that impressed with the audio. There was nothing really wrong with the audio sonically other than that noted below, as it had the type of overall fidelity that we have come to expect from lossless audio codecs such the Dolby True HD track included here. The dialogue track was well recorded and well placed in the mix. Overall dynamics and bass response were no better than average.

Where this audio didn’t cut it for me was in the the use of the surrounds. The surrounds, while active throughout the film, were not used very aggressively and hence did not provide the degree of immersion that I really love and that really helps pull you into the narrative. In short, the audio was too front heavy for my taste. The other area where I found the audio to be lacking was in the fidelity of the music used in the film, with the exception of the wedding band at the end of the film. The musical score sounded like bad cassette versions of the songs taken from fourth generation masters. While this did not detract too much from my enjoyment of the film, I did expect better from a new film. I recognize that this is not the fault of the codec but the original sound design. Nevertheless, I expect better.

Special Features

Frankly, I was not all that impressed with the extras included with this release. The extras include an audio commentary with Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Todd Phillips. Also included is a 15 minute segment entitled “Map of Destruction”, which re-traces each step the guys took during their visit to Las Vegas, I guess just in case you want to have as much fun as they did on your next visit to Vegas. Also included is a 30 second compilation of all the crashes and slap stick comedy that takes place in the film. Why? Good question.

Also included and thankfully only 1 minute and 52 seconds long is the “Three Best Friends song featured near the end of the film. The extra “The Madness of Ken Jeong” shows the various takes that comedian Ken Jeong improvised during the filming of one scene in the film. Not surprisingly, the best one was the one included in the film. “The Dan Band” consists of the rather inappropriate wedding band at the end of the film’s performance of the song Fame. Also included is a set of photographs from the the digital camera brought to Vegas by the boys not shown in the film, showing some of their exploits in greater detail. Many of the pictures feature shall we say scantily clad young women? The final extra is the traditional gag reel. The release also includes a disc containing a digital copy of the film. The release is also BD-Live enabled.

Final Thoughts

The Hangover is a funny film that features very good video and only so so audio that would make a great rental on a Friday or Saturday night.