Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

A Boy Named Charlie Brown Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 8, 2016

Life is tough. That's a lesson everyone learns, early on, and it's reinforced from that day forward until the day one dies. It's a lesson Charlie Brown knows all too well, too. Seems he's not too good at anything, which he believes means he's not too good at life. His ups and downs and whether he can learn to cope with the challenges life throws his way are at the center of A Boy named Charlie Brown, a 1969 feature film Directed by Bill Melendez and based on the characters created by the legendary Charles M. Schulz. Like Snoopy, Come Home, the film deals with real-world challenges in an agreeable manner, exploring rather deeply within a colorful and approachable context.

What's the signal for my Eephus pitch again?

Poor Charlie Brown (voiced by Peter Robbins). He's not particularly good at anything. But he tries. He tries to fly his kite, but he can't get it in the air, even as all the other kids enjoy watching theirs soar in the sky above. He takes the pitcher's mound but is constantly pelted by line drives until he's hit in the head with one. His team loses. He's dejected with life, and when a spot in the school spelling bee opens up, it would seem like the last place for him. He's not a good speller, and everyone knows it. But he decides to enter, anyway, believing that, if he could somehow win, that he could prove his worth to his friends and to himself. He surprises himself by performing well and studies up to make sure he continues to perform well. Can Charlie Brown beat the odds and win it all, or if he doesn't, can he still walk away a winner in his own head?

The film finds a relatable center almost immediately. Charlie Brown, for the life of him, cannot seem to succeed in life. No, it's not success in the important things. He's struggling to get his kite airborne and pitch well in his baseball game. These are little things. But those are confidence breakers for the kid nevertheless. He feels shut out of life, not necessarily because other kids shut him out -- though he is the object of derision, at times, and he's made fun of for lack of skill -- but because he closes in on himself and begins to doubt not just his ability on the ball field but in life. He's in a deep rut, which is taking its toll on his mental state. Of course, the film isn't some ultra-serious examination of depression and self-doubt. It's more approachable and agreeable, modest in its examination but honest in how it presents the character. It's unafraid to portray its character in a rather dark light while still keeping the movie free flowing, understandable, and something that audiences, kids and adults alike, can both learn from and, on its most superficial levels, enjoy.

Indeed, the film is light on its feet despite an examination of some of life's darker challenges. Just as Charlie Brown must do, so too must the film stay afloat. It does so through a nice pacing and some agreeable side bar moments but settles in when the audience can become part of Charlie Brown's cheering section as he finally finds a purpose when he enters the spelling bee and, surprising to the audience, his friends, and himself, finds traction and success in it. Brown puts his mind to work, studying for the test and learning the rules of spelling in a fun musical montage in which he gains his confidence in his abilities. It's a nice turnaround, even as the film does end in a fairly realistic learning experience for the boy as he comes to realize that win or lose a round or two in the game of life, the game goes on.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Boy Named Charlie Brown's 1080p transfer is similar to that found on the Snoopy, Come Home disc. Plenty of wear and tear is evident throughout -- the screen is littered with pops, scratches, speckles, and all sorts of signs of age and deterioration -- but the image otherwise holds up nicely. Clarity is up there. The Blu-ray is more than capable of getting down to the nitty-gritty animation details with a screen presence and vitality that older formats cannot even hope to match. Viewers will be intimately privy to the smallest textural nuances in characters and environments alike. Colors are pleasing, rather broad and lacking much in the way of seriously intimate gradations by design, but the crude reds, blues, greens, and other mainstays present with plenty of splash and vitality. Fans coming back to the movie after growing up seeing it on TV or VHS are in for a seriously good treat, wear and tear flaws and all.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Boy Named Charlie Brown features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Despite the channels available to it, and unsurprisingly so, information is mostly limited to the front-center portion of the soundstage. Musical clarity is a little stilted, passing the basics well enough but finding trouble in offering a wide, robust presentation or all that much definition beyond the cruder details. The U.S. national anthem, instrumental, finds a bit more punch and vitality, maybe even a slightly more wide spread out to the sides, but even then it doesn't venture all that far from the comfort of the middle. Much the same may be said of a musical montage during a sequence featuring Snoopy on skates. A loud hockey buzzer is the most impressive single sound effect in the film, and even with only modest clarity and no real sense of immersion or reverberation, the sharp, piercing sound plays nicely enough.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of A Boy Named Charlie Brown contains no supplemental content.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Boy Named Charlie Brown, much like Snoopy, Come Home, deals in the challenging themes that it presents sincerely, without makeup or mincing words, by maintaining an agreeable presentation and pacing. This film is about accepting life's hardships and moving forward, about trying, and finding the victory even in life's losses. It's very well done and holds up even after all these decades, as entertainment and thematically relevant storytelling alike. CBS/Paramount's Blu-ray release is disappointingly devoid of extra content, and video and audio aren't perfect, but fans will want to pick this up, though probably in the sub-$10 range. Recommended.