Blu-ray Review: Mr. Magorium's Wonderful Emporium

THE MOVIE: 3 stars out of 5

Sometimes you have to scratch your head and wonder why certain movies are released on Blu-Ray before other more popular and important titles. Clearly, there is a rush to get out titles that will appeal to the PS3 crowd, hence releases such as Hitman reviewed earlier. However, I must say that releases like the current review entry take me by surprise. Frankly, one would have expected this title to be released later rather than sooner, given the rather extensive Fox catalogue of highly anticipated titles.

Nevertheless, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is a charming little film which I will admit has a limited audience. It is essentially a children’s film. It stars Dustin Hoffman as Mr. Magorium who operates a magical toy store in New York and who happens to be several hundred years old. However he comes to the realization that he is soon to pass on and he makes arrangements to will his store to his store manager played by Natalie Portman, who has trouble coming to grips with Mr. Emporium’s coming death and her ability to manage his empire. While this is a cute and charming film, I would recommend this one as a rental only as it is targeted to children.

THE VIDEO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is encoded with AVC and presented here on a BD25 disc in its original aspect ratio of 2:35:1. In short, this is an excellent looking transfer. The film features bright and bold primary colors with excellent skin tones. Detail is excellent as well but just a tad below the best looking transfers. Shadow detail is excellent as well. Black level is deep and solid, generating an excellent three dimensional image. I saw no evidence of noise or artifacting and as one would expect from a new film, the print used was in pristine condition.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/3 stars out of 5

Encoded with DTS HD Master Audio, the audio presentation is very good. Just don’t expect a bombastic soundtrack. The overall sound of the film is quite nice with a nice smooth and open sound with good but not excellent bass. Dialogue was clear and distinct and always very intelligible, never getting lost in the sound mix. While not an immersive sounding track by any means, the surrounds were appropriately used. All in all, this is a solid sounding audio encode.

IN CONCLUSION

If you are in the mood for a charming family film with excellent video and good audio, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium may be the film for you. For the rest of you out there, I would recommend this one as a rental only.

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