Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Cat Run 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Runs straight for the litter box. And what gems it finds!

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 27, 2015

Cat Run 2 ties in with the original Cat Run by returning some characters -- but not the title Catalina "Cat" character -- and retaining Director John Stockwell to helm the movie. So it's Cat Run more in name and secondary character appearance only, which is fine considering that the film has no aspirations beyond, well, anything other than appearing on screen, it seems. The sequel flips and flops through an uneven tone of T&A, tattoos, comical hijinks, and cooking, all sprinkled...no...splashed...no...slathered in makeshift Norleans culture and Cajun accents. The movie isn't aimless, it just aims to be all-inclusive, to bend to the whim of a filmmaking team seemingly more determined to manufacture a movie made of bits and pieces of stuff, how well it all gels be damned. It's occasionally fun, sure, but the shenanigans wear rather thin, and fast, as it hops, skips, and jumps, seemingly at will and at random, from one thing to the next with only a cursory throwaway plot barely holding it all together.

Oh, how original!

There's so much gratuitous nudity to start the film that it comes as a something of a minor shock when leading lady Winter Ave Zoli covers up with a dead army dude's oversized camo shirt rather than run through the entire sequence -- and the rest of the film, for that matter -- topless. Decorum dictates she dress part of the time so as to at least to fit in across a few key scenarios in which she finds herself throughout the rest of the movie, but with the way Cat Run 2 so unabashedly focuses on almost nothing but skin early on -- including a Mission: Impossible-lite bit where Zoli's companion in crime and stripper sister bounces through the base's air ducts with nothing but her breasts to lead the way -- one might rightly expect Cat Run 2 to finish what it starts and dedicate itself to the cause. But alas, clothes are the rule rather than exception the rest of the way, which includes a character undergoing "total sexual recall" (or "pornographic memory" as the film lamely puts it) in which he, um, mentally re-loves a number of ladies, all in various states of undress and from a broad spectrum of nationalities and ages, up to and including the elderly. Yeah. So the movie has no shame, but it doesn't have a lot of guts, either, to go the full monty the full way.

But, rejoice! There are bullet holes that sometimes bleed and sometimes don't, private dicks who somehow stumble their way through the mystery en route to a television cooking contest, a Bayou-bred bad guy whose thick accent require subtitles, a random bit of dubbed dialogue in the tradition of the classic bad voiceovers from Japan, a "little people" wedding, an action scene in full daylight that's clandestinely kept in the dark (Change the music! Change the drink! Just don't come out here!), speed dating, fembots, and a whole lot more that tangentially-at-best relates to the loosely defined plot about something-or-another government secret on a thumb drive disguised as lipstick that somebody wants for some nefarious purpose. Frankly, it doesn't really matter -- at all -- because Cat Run 2 is more concerned with playing Scattergories instead, wrenching in any idea it can under the loose guidelines the script provides. Yes, it's all in good fun, and it works some of the time, but more often than not Cat Run 2 seems content to simply take a number 2 or, at best, take a number -- any number -- and hope for the best.

Yet the movie is somehow technically balanced, never getting fully on board with the sort of frenetic, nonstop, headache-inducing photography such a scatterbrained movie seems to demand. It's at least tolerably watchable from a purely technical perspective, and while the budgetary constraints are evident, they're never much of a hindrance. The movie is more concerned about creating the attainably absurd rather than the big-budget insane, milking its jokes and staging a bunch of stuff that doesn't cost much but that makes a big impact, even if that impact falls completely flat with a big old thud rather than a crisp crack that sends it over the fence for a cinematic home run. The movie settles for just a pile of pieces rather than anything of substance, but even with its stretches in both plausibility and respectability, the cast gives it a good, commendable go. Resident "dicks" Scott Mechlowicz and Alphonso McAuley seem always game to do whatever is asked of them, no matter how far out of left field. Winter Ave Zoli seems to enjoy what amounts to a working vacation, for the most part, parading through the film and seemingly in-tune with the in-jokes.

Cat Run 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cat Run 2's digitally sourced 1080p transfer generally pleases. While it's a bit flat and while blacks sometimes push a little too pale, it finds a nicely consistent level of coloring and detail that help bring it to life. Complex fabric texture, intimate skin lines, and other basic details excel. Image clarity is more often than not a strength, though the film's flattest, coldest scenes leave a bit to be desired. Colors are cheery with a nice range and strict attention to detail and nuance, though the palette does push mildly yellow at times. Viewers won't be distracted by any excessive bits of noise or banding. This is a technically proficient transfer of a movie that is, for the most part, visually pedestrian.

Cat Run 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cat Run 2 packs a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack that's inconsistent but more often than not on the plus end of the scale. Everything wavers, with music, effects, and dialogue all in various states of sonic readiness and exactness. Background music at a strip club enjoys a fair, lightly muddled strain but lacks a deep low end. More aggressive score is strong and clear but never wraps the listener up in the moment. Gunfire ranges from limp to heavy. Ambient support switches between light and nonexistent. Even dialogue, as straightforward, center-focused, and articulate as it usually may be, once or twice falls down and fails to recover sufficient weight and volume, evident predominantly when Anthony and Julian first arrive in New Orleans. The issues aren't pervasive, but they're enough to drag the track down from the upper echelons of lossless audio.

Cat Run 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Cat Run 2 contains no supplements, and no "top menu" is included. Chapters and subtitles tabs must be accessed in-film via the "pop-up" menu button on the remote control. Inside the Blu-ray case, buyers will find a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy.

Cat Run 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cat Run 2 isn't necessarily bad, it's just too random and aimless for its own good. It's all over the (New Orleans, er, Norleans) map, forcing in odd little bits here and there that loosely tie together what is itself a loosely defined plot. The movie's goal, it seems, is to simply have fun with what it has on hand, and no matter how random, it's all game. But it doesn't quite work, not in the way the best "random" Comedies work, anyway. The movie means well and tries hard -- a little too hard -- and winds up leaving viewers scratching their heads rather than laughing and falling out of their seats and ROTLFTFAO. Universal's featureless Blu-ray release of Cat Run 2 delivers satisfactory video and audio. Skip it.