Just Friends Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Just Friends Blu-ray Movie Review

Dinkleman!

Reviewed by Randy Miller III May 15, 2025

Originally set for release in January, Warner Archive's new Blu-ray edition of Roger Kumble's romantic black comedy Just Friends experienced a number of delays*... but what's another few months? After all, its last appearance on home video happened in March 2006, roughly three months before the launch of Blu-ray as a format, and it languished in SD for 20 years as one of countless mid-2000s titles that most assumed would never reach high definition. This isn't a big surprise, of course: Just Friends isn't an A/V tour de force and it didn't exactly light pop culture on fire either, earning modest box office receipts and mixed reviews from critics at the time, although Reynolds' name clearly carries a lot more weight post-Deadpool. So, can Just Friends now be seen as buried treasure ahead of its time?

Not really, but it has its moments. Just Friends is a broad and slapstick-fueled affair that actually feels like a relic from the late 1990s, a scattershot effort that just barely escapes its 94-minute running time before the welcome wears out. It follows the sad, sad life of one Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds), an overweight teen whose massive crush on gal pal Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart) has gone unrequited. Yep, he's in the dreaded "friend zone" and can't find his way out. The tipping point arrives at a house party that starts with too many guests and ends with almost all of them pointing and laughing at Chris' rejection, even after arguably bigger losers like Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein) strike out with Jamie. Clawing his way out of rock bottom, Chris storms away and vows to turn his life around.

Fast-forward to the present, and Chris is now a well-paid and noticeably fitter L.A. record producer working under label head KC (Stephen Root), and let's just say his success with women has turned completely around. He's a selfish, overly confident, and egotistical jerk with a long line of sexual conquests and obviously resents the fat, sensitive loser he was all those years ago. Chris' latest errand is to usher vapid pop superstar Samantha James (Anna Faris) to Paris and woo her into signing, but an on-board accident forces them to land near his New Jersey hometown after a ten-year absence. Dreading a holiday reunion with his family and old friends (especially with the psychotic, wild-eyed Samantha in tow), Chris nonetheless sucks it up and pays a visit to his mom (Julie Hagerty) and younger teen brother Mike (Christopher Marquette). Not surprisingly, most of his graduating class is still around, Jamie included, but it's plainly obvious that this "new and improved" Chris isn't going to fit in very well... not that he ever did to begin with.

What follows is a pretty predictable string of disastrous run-ins with Chris and his "old friends"... not to mention his reunion with aspiring teacher Jamie, who's happy he's turned his life around but can't help but notice he's now a huge asshole rather than the sweet guy she remembers from high school. But Chris isn't the only one who's changed: Dusty, once a terrible guitarist, is now a better one and a handsome paramedic to boot, which means that Jamie's on both of their radars and, try as he might, Chris just can't figure out how to win. Eventually he does, of course, but it feels rushed and doesn't earn Just Friends the gooey marshmallow center it may or may not have been aiming for.

This all sounds a lot like standard-issue rom-com material, basically a magic-free gender swap of 13 Going on 30 that plays like Sporty Thievz's rebuttal to TLC's "No Scrubs": not big enough for chart-topping success, but still pretty funny. I'll admit that yours truly got a few big laughs out of Just Friends and some smaller ones too, but that's mostly because it's so nonsensically random in its use of broad, slapstick comedy that it ends up breaking up chunks of that rom-com monotony. The end result, however, is pretty fleeting and doesn't exactly scream "unheralded classic", rather a minor genre entry that very much feels like a product of its time, stuck in that endless sea of vaguely watered-down teen comedies arriving in the wake of the equally unremarkable but intermittently funny American Pie.

Nonetheless, I'm really glad that Just Friends has earned a Blu-ray edition; belated as it is, this is a clean upgrade of that 2006 DVD with its surprisingly hefty amount of bonus feature left intact. Die-hard fans will absolutely be over the moon for this one, although it's not quite an easily recommended blind buy unless you're a particularly big fan of Ryan Reynolds and/or romantic comedies infused with ample amounts of slapstick and gay jokes.

* - Another delay was discovered at the time of its release, as the first batch of WAC's Blu-rays was authored with DTS-HD 2.0 audio and missing bonus features. The quickly-corrected version of this disc is actually much more common, but a replacement program was recently announced and full details have already been posted in our forum.

Just Friends Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This 1080p transfer of Just Friends likely stems from the same DVD-era master first created two decades ago, which isn't all that surprising seeing how a film this young isn't one that would need to be "restored" like the bulk of Warner Archive's output. As such, the boutique label's Blu-ray yields a basic, workmanlike improvement to that earlier release with a clean, stable image that boasts solid fine detail, good color representation, and no compression-related issues such as banding, macro blocking, or posterization. Given its 20-year delay, the biggest olive branch is that Warner Archive's Blu-ray is likely a solid step or two above anything Warner Bros. would've authored back in 2006.

Just Friends Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track likewise offers basic but not revelatory improvements to the DVD's Dolby Digital mix, serving up similarly front-loaded sonics with a handful of surprises in the form of low end and occasional panning effects, not to mention plenty of room for the film's original score and soundtrack which features a collection of 90s and early 2000s hits including Fountains of Wayne's "Hackensack", The Lemonheads', "Into Your Arms", and of course All-4-One's "I Swear", memorably lip-synced by Ryan Reynolds during the end credits. It's a perfectly decent mix overall; nothing groundbreaking, but right in line with genre expectations and free from defects in every way.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are offered during the main feature only, not the extras listed below.

Just Friends Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with painfully dull poster art (right down to the lazy "thick/thin" logo design that still dominates comedies) and no inserts of any kind. The extras are all ported from the 2006 DVD releases with no apparent exclusions, which is great because there's actually a good amount of stuff included here.

• Audio Commentary - This jokey and surface-level track herds together director Roger Kumble, writer Adam "Tex" Davis, producer Chris Bender, co-producer Jake Weiner, and executive producers Richard Brener and Cale Boyter, who offer a few light details but are mostly there to have fun and that's OK.

• Behind the Scenes Featurettes (11 segments, 59:10 total) - A collection of self-explanatory short-form promotional featurettes that includes "The Transformation", "A Director's Guide to Comedy", "Developing Just Friends", "The Reshoots", "It's Friggin' Cold", "A Writer's Journey", "A Disaster in the Making", "Tales From the Friend Zone", "The Body Shake", "The Cheer", and "Red Bulb Records". The last two featurettes were originally paired with their same-named deleted scenes on the DVD, but are separated this time around.

• Deleted / Alternate Scenes (6 clips, 12:08 total) - A half-dozen excised bits and pieces including "Red Bulb Records", "Day Date", "The Cheer", "Christmas Eve", "Christmas", and an alternate ending. All are available with optional audio commentary by Roger Kumble, Adam, "Tex" Davis, and Chris Bender.

• "Jamie Smiles" Music Video (2:59)

• "Samantha James" Music Video (1:59)

• Gag Reel (2:54)

• Theatrical Trailer (2:23) - Watch it here.

Just Friends Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Just Friends had a shot at success back in November '05 as a holiday rom-com with teeth (I likened it to a magic-free gender swap of 13 Going on 30 above), but it barely made a dent with audiences and was delivered to DVD just a few short months before the Blu-ray format launch. I kinda liked it and certainly chuckled quite a few times, but it's fairly forgettable once the credits roll and feels like a lost relic from the late 1990s that arrived to the party a few years late. Nonetheless, this belated Blu-ray from Warner Archive is squarely aimed at die-hard fans who had long since given up, but for obvious reasons it might not be the best blind buy around. It's thus Recommended to the right crowd.