Blu-ray Review: Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story

THE MOVIE: 2 stars out of 5

Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story is a fictional biopic along the lines of Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and frankly, just as stupid. Walk Hard stars John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, a fictional rock superstar and tells his story from the day he cut his piano protege brother in half with a machete to his death seconds after his final performance. The film is filled with what else (?) Cox jokes and juvenile and absurd humor, most of it in poor taste. While I love humor that is in poor taste, it has to be funny. This is not a funny film and one I couldn’t wait to end. If you loved Talledega Nights, you will likely love this film. I didn’t and don’t.

THE VIDEO: 4 stars out of 5

Encoded with AVC and presented in its original aspect ratio of 2:40:1, Walk Hard doesn’t really offer anything special in the video department. Black levels were below average giving the film a rather flat and lifeless image. The colors were all over the place and didn’t look natural at all looking over saturated. Flesh tones were also not natural at all and seemed to vary from scene to scene. I don’t know if that was intentional or not. I can say that it was not pleasing to the eye, or at least these eyes. Detail was nothing to write home about either. In fact, the film looked fairly soft, lacking the clarity of the reference encodes. All in all, the video presentation here was lackluster, kinda like the film itself.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

While the video here is lackluster, the same can’t be said of the audio. The audio is presented with Dolby True HD and sounds very good. The dialogue is clear and distinct and well presented in the mix. The sound field is also fairly immersive, giving one a palpable sense of space. Bass is rock solid as well. Where the sound on this release really shines is in in the musical numbers which have a nice smooth and open sound with excellent dynamics. The sound really places you in the venues with the performers. It is just too bad that the actual songs were not of better quality although I will say that John C. Reilly did his best to sell them.

IN CONCLUSION

If you are a fan of this type of film, I guess you will enjoy it. I didn’t like this film at all. GIven the rather lackluster video I can’t recommend this one as a purchase to fans of the film. For you fans out there, I would recommend this one as a rental only. For the ret of you, you will be better off skipping this one.

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