Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Ed Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 25, 2020

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.

Cooper (Matt LeBlanc), a farmhand who has never played ball in his life, wows scouts with a rocket for an arm, lighting up the radar gun like few others can. He’s quickly signed by the Rockets, a class-A minor league team managed by a baseball lifer named Chubb (Jack Warden). But Cooper’s hall-of-fame arm means nothing without full confidence in his ability. He freezes in front of a crowd and chokes under pressure and resultantly struggles to find success in pro ball. With the team on the ropes, the Rockets sign a chimpanzee named Ed to play third base. And Ed can really pick it at the hot corner. Ed becomes a sensation on the diamond, pulling off an unassisted triple play on the first ball hit to him, drawing a four-pitch walk Eddie Gaedel-style when he's up to bat, and helps Cooper earn his first win. The two are paired to room together, and while they work out the peculiars of their new relationship, Cooper finds more success on the mound and begins dating the lovely Lydia (Jayne Brook) while Ed befriends Lydia’s daughter Liz (Doren Fein). Can the team find as much success on the field as Cooper and Ed find off of it?

Because all of the other random noise wasn't enough, Ed is "sold" to start the third act, leading Cooper on a chase to retrieve him, right before a big game, of course. Can he make it back in time to pitch, and if he does, can he finally find the poise that he eluded him without Ed at his side? The movie has not an original thought to its name, except for dropping a chimp onto a baseball diamond. Unfortunately the antics, which include the usual array of fart jokes, lame stabs at baseball humor, and a cut-rate romance all equal a bomb of a movie that's destined to never get out of the minor leagues.

The movie is ultimately about life's priorities. Cooper learns from young Lizzie, of all people, that keeping his focus on baseball and ignoring the world around him isn't such a good idea. He needs balance in his life. Lizzie, Lydia, and Ed all help him find it, allowing him to loosen up rather than remain a slave to the stresses of baseball, which are keeping him from unlocking his true potential on the mound. But try as it might to build legitimate character arcs and narratives and have something to say about life, like The Natural and Field of Dreams before it, it fails. It's also incapable of building any real humor on the diamond or off it like Major League before it. It's an empty vessel of a movie in every way imaginable.

Ed Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Ed Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

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.

Ed Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.