Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Girls Trip Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 12, 2017

From a very crude structural perspective, Comedies like Girls Trip are a dime-a-dozen. Plop a few friends into a crowd where lots of colors shine, loud music blares, alcohol flows, chaos ensues, truths are revealed, relationships are tested, and friends ultimately grow stronger than ever before, and it's pretty much the top-to-bottom bullet point guideline for a contemporary Comedy. Girls Trip is practically a journey through that list; its basic structure is so familiar that one could be forgiven for believing the movie came out two, three, five, ten years ago. But it has a few things going for it that so many others of its kind cannot achieve, at least not to this level: a carefully constructed roster of largely likable characters with a believable history together and a quartet of leading ladies whose chemistry is off-the-charts kinds of wonderful. The film overcomes core point-to-point scene and shenanigan cliché with not just spunk and spirit but a perfectly cast ensemble that's completely committed to shaping the story, the characters, and entertaining the audience.

Four longtime friends -- Ryan (Regina Hall), Sasha (Queen Latifah), Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Dina (Tiffany Haddish) -- collectively known as the "Flossy Posse" haven't entirely drifted apart, but they're no longer the inseparable foursome they once were. They've taken their own paths which have seen them find varying degrees of personal and financial success. Ryan has become a star. She's already rich and famous and she's on the fast-track to super fame and fortune, and she and her man Stewart (Mike Colter) are a couple with limitless potential. When Ryan is invited to address the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, she gathers her friends together to make the trip by her side and turn a business trip into an unforgettable vacation. But as they settle in and let loose, they find that their individual and collective actions have consequences, and with more personal truths revealed along the way, none of them will leave New Orleans the same.

Girls Trip tightropes a very fine line between agreeable and obnoxious. The movie veers towards the latter at almost every turn but wrangles its way solidly back to the former, even as it celebrates comic excess in practically every scene. Its secret isn't balance. The film is full-frontal insanity, indulging in a near endless string of gratuitous language, sex jokes, alcohol abuse, and general hard partying. None of that is new, none of that is particularly interesting. What makes it work is the cast's commitment to it, the total absorption into character and the antics that propel the experience throughout, from the mundane details of their lives on through to the chaos they experience and the eventual realities they face and the tough decisions they're forced to make. The film rounds the characters nicely, never leaving them as simply props to propel humor. For all of them, there's always a greater underlying component at play, some that are known off the bat, some that are revealed and dealt with as the film progresses. Girls Trip parties hard, but it works its characters hard, too, contextualizing their antics and their relationships and rounding them into real people, never content to simply make them comedy-propelling props.

But no matter how crude or shrewd the script may be in places -- it's always one or the other, often both, and in some state of harmony between the two -- it's the cast that shines and makes the movie stand well above many of the like-minded and mostly mindless films out there. Yes they're foul-mouthed, they party extra-hard, they flop and flail when Absinthe makes its way through their system, but when it comes to who they are, the relationships they've built, the struggles they've endured, the place in life they find themselves today, they're all over the more intimate details that given them shape and give the movie a purpose beyond just another recycled drunk getaway movie. Chemistry is off-the-charts high. It is their ally, the movie's major saving grace, the quality that separates it from others. That they are longtime friends is established in the script, but that sense of camaraderie, that closeness, that deep understanding of themselves, of one another, and of the collective quartet sees the roster, and by extension the movie, rise well above the low-bar baseline for these sorts of films. As their stories evolve throughout their vacation, and as things are resolved by the end, the audience never flinches, not at the most frivolous moment, not at the most serious character crossroads. They're all impressively believable at their core, beyond the shenanigans that might make the audience laugh but cannot make the audience care without these ladies leading the way.

Girls Trip Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Girls Trip delivers an abundantly colorful and extraordinarily clean 1080p image, sourced from a digital shoot. Universal's presentation is nearly spot-on perfect, with only occasional bouts of modest noise really interfering with the picture. Colors are the most obvious highlight; the palette delivers an endless barrage of deeply saturated, showy, and diverse colors. Whether multicolored clothes, New Orleans locations, or any number of critical support elements, like fruit that drives a few of the film's key comedic scenes, the palette never struggles to deliver intense bursts of color that rival any other film on the format. Detailing is solid. The image is crisp and very well defined, with no smudgy edges or unattractive textural qualities. Facial textures are intimately complex even at medium distance. Clothes are remarkably sharp and precise. Environments are clean and finely detailed. Black levels hold firm and skin tones are rich and pleasing. Blu-ray new releases don't come a whole lot better than this.

Girls Trip Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Girls Trip features a boisterous and engaging DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Universal's presentation delivers quality music, offering the film's robust and diverse soundtrack with engaging details, wide spacing, hearty surround and subwoofer engagement, a total package of sonic bliss, no matter the style, location in film, or mood that need be set. Street-level city din offers impressive immersion and precision detail across the board, effortlessly pulling the listener into the often raucous locations. Dialogue features top-tier clarity, positioning, and prioritization.

Girls Trip Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Girls Trip contains a handful of extras, including a commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes, and a music video. A DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy is included with purchase.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 10:12): Baby App, Sasha Gets Lewd Proposition, PTA, Ryan's Words Come Back, Ryan and Stewart Again, Sasha Keeps it Real, and Flossy Posse in Turmoil. With optional Director Malcolm D. Lee commentary.
• Outtakes (1080p, 25:17).
• Planning the Trip (1080p, 10:12): Making a vacation comedy with women in the lead roles, the ensemble cast, performances, Malcolm D. Lee's direction, crafting various scenes, shooting in New Orleans, and more.
• Outrageous Moments (1080p, 5:35): A closer look at a few of the film's key scenes.
• The Essence of NOLA (1080p, 5:45): Another round of discussions about shooting in New Orleans.
• Music Video/Movie Music Scene (1080p, 2:58): Extended Performance of "Because of You" by Ne-Yo.
• Audio Commentary: Director Malcolm D. Lee offers a substantial and informative commentary track that covers project specifics, story details, cast and characters, shooting locations, and plenty more.

Girls Trip Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Girls Trip would have been a disaster of repetitiveness, of follow-the-leader crude humor Comedy were it not for its cast. The script has some depth, but it's the cast, that coveted chemistry and the ability to individually and collectively sell the stories, that makes the movie rise above the muck it otherwise wades through. The movie is unquestionably crude at face value, but it's pretty solid below the surface, where the heart beats and the soul resides. Universal's Blu-ray is sure to satisfy fans, boasting top-tier video and audio along with a healthy allotment of bonus content. Recommended.