Blu-ray Review: 27 Dresses

THE MOVIE: 3 stars out of 5

Always the bridesmaid and never the bride. That old expression essentially forms the basis for this romantic comedy, although I prefer the term “chick flick” to describe this film. 27 Dresses refers to the number of times that the lead character played by Katherine Heigl has been a bridesmaid as she still has all 27 dresses stuffed in her New York City apartment closest. She is so into weddings that she plans the weddings of her friends down to the last detail. She has a crush on her boss but never lets him know until her younger sister arrives and gets romantically involved with her boss to the point where he proposes. Of course, they ask her to plan the wedding. The rest, well, I will leave that for you to find out.

I can’t say that I would recommend this film for anything other than a rental. While there are amusing parts of the film to be sure, it is rather predictable and only mildly amusing. One of the big problems I had with the film was the casting of Ms. Heigl in the lead role. She simply looks gorgeous. The camera really, really likes her and she just radiates off the screen. I just could not believe that she would ever be a perpetual bridesmaid. However, if you and your spouse are looking for light fare on a Friday or Saturday night at home, give this one a rental. It is not a buy for me.

THE VIDEO: 4 stars out of 5

27 Dresses is encoded with AVC at 34MBPS and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2:40:1. If I had to use one word to sum up this encode it would be mediocre. All aspects of the video presentation are simply of average quality. Colors and skin tones are good but nothing to write home about. The overall color palette is somewhat muted. Clarity, detail and black level is average as well. The overall image is a tad on the soft side and rather flat, lacking the three dimensionality of the better transfers. Quite frankly, I was somewhat disappointed by the look of this film as I was expecting a sharper more vibrant picture. Make no mistake, this release clearly looks like HD and is miles ahead of a standard DVD, just not up to the level I expected and have come to expect from the folks at 20th Century Fox releases on Blu-Ray.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/4 stars out of 5

The audio on this release is encoded with DTS HD Master Audio and has a very pleasing sound. Dialogue is crisp and clear and well presented in the mix. As you would expect with a romantic comedy, this is a dialogue driven film with the sound field emanating from the front three speakers. There is little use of the surrounds other than for a couple of scenes where they are used quite effectively giving a nice immersive effect. The over all sound of the film is smooth and open without even a hint of edginess or hardness to the sound. My only real, quibble with the sound here is that I felt the bass to be somewhat lacking during the musical soundtrack. Other than that, I found the sound of the film to be quite pleasing if not spectacular and quite in keeping with the overall tone of the film.

IN CONCLUSION

27 Dresses is a nice date flick or one to enjoy with your spouse on a weekend night. However, given the rather lackluster video presentation, I would recommend this only as a rental.

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