6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A young orphan (Shahidi) discovers her uncanny talent for butter sculpture in an Iowa town where her adoptive family lives. The talent pits her against the ambitious wife (Garner) of the reigning champion (Burrell) in the annual butter sculpture competition.
Starring: Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, Rob Corddry, Ashley GreeneDark humor | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
This is the cutthroat story of greed, blackmail, sex, and butter.
Butter serves up an endless buffet of empty cinema calories. The picture delights in telling an unimaginative story of a vengeful, power-driven
woman that exists behind a cheery, wholesome guise in the middle of small town America that itself is really not nearly as innocent as it looks. It's a
movie about
deceptive characters and the great lengths to which they will go to secure their place of prominence in society, be it in the city or the supposedly
quieter and less chaotic small towns of rural America. It's also the tale of innocence versus
delusion, of purity versus spite, of real talent pulled from the heart against the drive for external reward. It's a decent if not tired premise with which
Butter does nothing novel. It's a movie that fails to sufficiently elevate its characters, to make them either whole or worth
emotional investment. It plays only to extremes and to the detriment of the core story. There's a better movie in Butter, but the picture
spends too much time on the outside looking in to incorporate anything but the transparent basics of a superior story.
Waiting to strike.
Butter's high definition transfer is oh-so-tasty. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray presentation dazzles at every turn. Light grain accentuates the transfer's beautiful film-like qualities. Textures are natural and crisp; the image is very well-defined even through large crowds of people and around complex landscapes and interiors. Clarity never wavers, details never appear less than true to the source, and facial and clothing textures are as natural as can be. Colors are bold and true but not aggressive. From bright blue skies to lush green grasses and considering all the wonderful shades that pop up in the fair sequences and within the more closed-in confines of various interiors seen throughout the film, the palette never fails to dazzle in every frame. Black levels remain perfect throughout, and flesh tones never drift towards any extreme. The print is clean and no other anomalies are noted. This is flawless high definition transfer from Anchor Bay.
Butter makes its Blu-ray debut with a pleasant DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. As one might expect, this is largely a dialogue film with moments of energy scattered throughout. The spoken word plays cleanly and evenly, with rock-solid intelligibility and constant center placement, save for when the film calls for, and the track delivers, a wider presentation when characters address others through microphones and within more spacious environments that allow for a fun little bit of reverberation. Nice, natural ambience -- crowd noise, nighttime crickets -- aid in the delivery and authenticity of several scenes, but the track never really offers much in the way of aggressive discrete or directional effects. Heavier singularities, like one automobile slamming into another, offer suitable power and presence. Music plays with the expected cleanness, accuracy, and front-spade spacing. There's also a subtle but critical low end support that rounds it into shape. On the flip side, there's little energy to a potent striptease song heard in the first act. Overall, however, the track more often than not gets it not just right, but perfect. For this sort of film, it would be difficult to get much better.
Butter contains only two brief extras. A DVD copy of the film is also included.
Butter disappoints in nearly every respect. Unimaginative drama, a wonky structure, poor pacing (the film peaks early and never recovers), and mishandled characters are saved only by a sweet performance from Yara Shahidi and the interesting and cinematically novel backdrop that is "butter carving." The movie shows spurts of goodness and might have worked better with a rewrite, but as it is the film never finds a stride and settles for less than its best. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray does offer flawless video, strong audio, and a couple of supplements. Rent before buying.
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