Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

How High Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 27, 2021

How High may very well represent a new low in the "Stoner" genre. The film ignores even the simplest of necessary building blocks, believing that sheer nonsense and brainless exploits, not to mention vapid characters (who may as well be vapor) and a meaningless story, can yield a worthwhile movie. While it's true there's some degree of mindlessness necessary to building a (quasi) successful picture of this type (Pineapple Express, Half Baked), the creative talent behind How High simply throws weed at the wall and hopes some of it will stick. Almost none of it does. The movie is a chore to watch. Even the odd joke or gag that hits fails to elevate the material to a high enough level to warrant a recommendation to watch.

Silas (Method Man) is an intelligent man who knows his way around herbs. He’s running a small time dope business out of his apartment which he has transformed into a nifty little growing setup. He’d love to cultivate his craft, so to speak, but college and book learning just aren’t for him. When his stoner friend Ivory (Chuck Deezy) accidentally lights himself on fire, falls from a window, is run over by a bus, and dies, Silas and his pal Jamal (Redman) smoke his remains and meet up with his spirit who presents them with a great opportunity: all of the answers to their high school standardized test and the promise of a first-rate education. Harvard University, determined to add some racial balance to its student body, comes recruiting. Silas and Jamal enroll in the prestigious ivy league school and continue to receive test answers from beyond and ace their classes all the while really majoring in women and weed. But can the charade last forever?

The cast of forgettable characters may be the most damaging component in a film that offers almost no redeeming value. The roster is filled with stereotypes that are not simply underdeveloped: they're barely developed at all. Every character -- particularly the middle tier ones but even up to the primaries -- exists in a state of narrative emptiness, a void that even for a "stoner movie" is quite disturbingly evident. The scriptwriters have taken no care to offer anything beyond the crudest of character traits. Even if "women and weed" drive the story there's no dimensionality to even those meager pursuits. The characters exist because human beings must appear on the screen to satisfy story requirements; if it were possible for the jokes to exist in some form of vacuum away from flesh and blood they probably would have because the flesh and blood does nothing to flesh them out or give them life.

The movie is unfunny, generally, with only occasional moments of genuine humor eliciting a sincere laugh. The material is too stale and the plot too thin to churn out much funny business, in large part because the film is little more than a stale rehash of essential concepts and plot points and character models that have long since been used up for all they're worth. There's not a lick of creativity at play here and the actors certainly don't work very hard to make the film funny, either (save for Chris Elwood who tries to channel Jim Carrey in every scene). Add uninspired production design, photography, and direction, and the film just never gets up off the ground.

How High Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

How High's 1080p transfer isn't exactly poor, per se. It's just horribly and wholly underwhelming and uninspired. Here's a movie that is certainly not the most aesthetically pleasing ever committed to the medium. It's bland and drab, made on the cheap, a film in which the cinematography is not so adept as to even allow the supposed grandeur of Harvard exteriors to find much visual excellence. The Blu-ray presentation reflects what appears to be the movie's innate flatness and lack of finessed texture. There's certainly no high level of detail here. At best the picture finds a relatively flat curve for textural intimacy, scraping by with revealing the basics and little more beyond. The picture benefits from the 1080p resolution for its sheer horsepower but there's little here that really takes meaningful advantage beyond essential clarity. Faces lack true in-depth intimacy, clothing isn't explored to the finest stitch, and location details are uninspired at best. Colors are likewise drab and flat, lacking more than cursory intensity and certainly never leaping off the screen with purely vivid and endlessly colorful outbursts. Everything is pasty and rather dull, lacking tonal output nuance. Color presentation is certainly well within spec, particularly for a movie as unimpressively photographed as this one, but do not go into the film expecting the next great color spectrum demo disc. Skin tones? Meh. Black levels? Eh. Nothing offensive, nothing remarkable. Compression issues are not issues and print anomalies are likewise not of much trouble. The movie is just not attractive and the Blu-ray reflects that.

How High Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is likewise hardly revelatory but it has a few modest high points on offer that actually might make listeners perk up their ears for a few fleeting moments. For the most part this is audio by rote. It's straightforward in sound design and delivery into the home theater, presenting basics like dialogue and music with fine essential fidelity if not lagging due to inherent production limitations; this is not exactly a big budget movie that critically relies on its sound design. Listeners will hear musical notes -- which range from rap to Metal in one scene -- with perfectly acceptable fidelity and dialogue that is intelligible and center positioned. There are a few prominent audio outbursts, some higher yield sonic antics, at a couple of points throughout, including a prank involving pigeons at the 51-minute mark. Additionally, there is a decent sense of din on busy outside areas at college while slight atmospherics filter through other exterior scenes, including chirping birds and passing cars, helping to draw the listener more fully into the film's environments. This is a straightforward listen with a couple of moments of increased activity, but there is more than just a steady pulse at work, unlike the video.

How High Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of How High contains several extras, all of which must be accessed in-film via the pop-up menu button. There is no top menu screen and pressing that button on the remote simply restarts the movie from the beginning. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 21:59 total runtime): Several scenes with no identifying titles or markers.
• Outtakes (1080i, 2:53): Humorous takes from the shoot.
• WTHC Special (1080i, 21:42): Recounting plot basics, exploring character qualities, and offering various behind-the-scenes clips and interview snippets.
• Method Man & Redman "Part II" Music Video (1080i, 4:12).
• Jonell & Method Man "Round and Round Remix" Music Video (1080i, 4:12).
• Audio Commentary: Method Man and Redman explore the film from a rather humorous perspective.

How High Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

How High just blows a lot of smoke. There's very little here of value. The film simply populates its atmosphere with toxic fumes that essentially dismiss the high and take the audience straight to the letdown phase. The good news is that there's no after desire for more. One puff of this bad weed is enough. Universal's Blu-ray is just about as boring as the movie itself. Forgettable video, acceptable audio, and a few supplements make this one an easy "pass" as in "pass on buying" rather than "pass the pipe."