4.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
A trained chimpanzee plays third base for a minor-league baseball team.
Starring: Matt LeBlanc, Jack Warden, Jayne Brook, Bill Cobbs, Jim CaviezelFamily | 100% |
Comedy | 60% |
Sport | 31% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Ed attempts to build a baseball romance and comedy with a chimpanzee in the middle. It doesn't work. One can only wonder what was going on during the scriptwriting process. Perhaps the writers figured all the good ideas had been taken by The Natural, Major League, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and Bad News Bears but, because a script had to be written and a movie had to be made, it was decided that a struggling minor league pitcher should be paired with a chimpanzee playing third base, which is also his roommate. It's new! It's fresh! It's...a total fail. Lame jokes, a poor story, uninteresting characters, and no real concern for any of the various plot points make for a laborious movie that, at its best, goes through the motion and at its worst teeters on unwatchable.
Ed actually looks very good on Blu-ray. The picture is true to its filmic roots, holding steady to a naturally occurring and very attractive grain structure. It's complimentary of the rather robust details which appear throughout, particularly in the many close-ups (the film is awash in skewered perspectives and cockeyed angles, serving no real purpose other than, perhaps, distracting from the subpar movie they are showing) where viewers will discover intricate hair detail, intimate pores, fine uniform textures, and other odds and ends in dugouts, locker rooms, apartments, anywhere and everywhere the movie goes. Colors are not vibrant to the extreme, but saturation is fair and contrast is dialed into natural. The red accented Rockets uniforms are nicely punchy, and the green grass on the ballfields appears pleasantly rich and natural. Skin tones are healthy and black levels are satisfactorily deep. There are a few stray speckles here and there, some of which linger in place for a scene. There are no other source or encode maladies worth mentioning. For such a poor movie, this is one of Universal's better MOD (Manufactured on Demand) catalogue releases.
Ed's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is fairly good in total. It's robust and perhaps a bit over-engineered but the track is never shy about extending itself to the soundstage's furthest corners for both discrete effect placement and broader location expansion. The baseball game scenes are amongst the best the track has to offer. There's a pleasant atmosphere in play, notably scattered crowd chatter, cheers, and jeers of varying intensity depending on the importance of the game. Listeners will fine good, albeit artificial, movement as the ball cracks off the bat and then tracks through the listening area. Music enjoys robust spacing and solid foundational clarity. Dialogue is clear, well prioritized, and emanates from the natural front-center location.
This Blu-ray release of Ed contains no supplemental features. No top menu is included; pushing the top menu button only restarts the movie from the beginning. The pop-up menu allows users to toggle subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.
Other baseball movies have tried, and succeeded, to put an out-of-place character on (or around) the diamond. Rookie of the Year and Little Big League both featured kids playing and managing in the big leagues, respectively, but Ed drops a chimp in a third base for no real rhyme or reason. Fever Pitch would do the baseball romance angle better, too, about a decade later. Watch for a cameo from legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda and a young Jim Caviezel in one of his earlier roles. Universal's Blu-ray is at least, and surprisingly, of a high quality beyond the complete absence of supplemental content. Video and audio are about as good as one could want for a subpar movie such as this. For fans only.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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