Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Little Boy Blu-ray Movie Review

Big heart.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 15, 2015

It takes courage to believe.

Life's challenges cannot be solved with a magic wand and a flick of a wrist, as much as everyone would like to believe that it can, and should, be that easy. And those challenges aren't just bumps in the road. Life has a nasty habit of pushing and shoving and breaking people down, of accentuating the negative and throwing aside the positive, of making things as difficult as they can be rather than as simple as they should. Life cannot be beaten back. Time marches on. "Life happens." So what is one to do? Accept it and hope that life takes a day -- or a lifetime -- off? Of course not. But even as sticks and stones may do nothing in the futile pushback against life (except, maybe, make the job a little easier when man makes those difficulties his own and levies all that fury against one another), there is one trick that might just slap life in the face and shake up its plans. And that is having, showing, and living by and through faith, a faith that says there's something greater at work, something that can move through the hurt and darkness and replace it with joy and light. Life will always have the last laugh in death, but it's in how one approaches life, how one sizes it up, takes hold of the lessons learned by past generations, and lives with a hopeful attitude, a positive demeanor, and an unflinching belief that there's always something better on the horizon -- whether that horizon is the next turn around the block or as far as they eye can see and well beyond -- that can allow someone to take control of their own destiny. Little Boy is a magical little movie about a small child who lives to believe and his journey towards a greater understanding of how life works and what he can do -- even in the face of doubt, ridicule, and other obstacles -- to make life's burden disappear and influence the world around him in his favor.

New friends.

Pepper Busbee (Jakob Salvati) is small for his age. His height gets him a fair bit of ridicule around town, but all that matters is that his father (Michael Rapaport) loves him more than anything in the world, and that feeling is mutual. They're best friends and they're inseparable. But when Pepper's older brother London (David Henrie) is denied entry into the armed forces during World War II on account of his flat feet, his father makes the decision to go his place. That leaves little Pepper devastated. But when he attends a live show with his favorite magician, he's pulled form the crowd and made to believe that he has a power greater than he ever knew. Combine that with a church parable he hears about faith being able to move mountains, and he suddenly believes he's capable of doing anything, even the impossible, even bringing his father back home from the war. To do so, however, the local minister (Tom Wilkinson) tells Pepper that, to mature and strengthen his faith, he'll have to leap over another impossibly high hurdle: befriend a local Japanese outcast named Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) who the town, and even Pepper's bother London, uses as a human punching bag for its wartime anger, frustrations, and fears.

Central to Little Boy is the Biblical parable that says, "truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." For the Little Boy, that mustard seed is, quite literally, a seed he carries with him but also his diminutive stature and inability to physically do anything about his father's situation beyond manifesting his faith by way of outstretched arms and a strained grunt. And his mountain is a metaphorical Everest times a million. He's separated from his father by countries, an ocean, a near total lack of comprehension of why his father is over there or what he's doing. It's a mountain too tall to scale, too distant to see, too difficult to understand. He's just old enough to realize that his father may never return but too young to grasp the deeper meaning behind his father's actions or, even more local to his situation, the ridicule he receives and faithless laughs aimed in his direction when he strains to put his faith into action, failing to understand the finer points of belief but, at the same time, proving its power by his tireless actions to make his dream a reality.

All he knows is that he's lost his best friend -- his "partner" -- to a mystery people he knowns only as "the Japs" who, by their very being, he believes based on what he hears and sees around town, have essentially taken everything he loves. And it just so happens that the only man who can truly help him understand his world is Japanese. He must befriend the enemy, or at least the man who looks like the enemy, and take an outward leap of faith and learn that, like inner faith, there's more to life -- to men -- than their appearance, the outward projection that's not always evident without a deeper context. Befriending Hashimoto is as close as he can come to scaling his mountain, and it's at the top -- when the friendship evolves beyond a "must do" and transitions to a "want to do" -- that Little Boy begins to understand the bedrock principles and power of faith, that the world is bigger than it appears but, in many ways, smaller, too.

The film's premise is incredibly simple but its center is a complex web of metaphorical, metaphysical, and spiritual ideas that it unravels gently, in due time, and with enough spirit and heartfelt emotion to flood the grand canyon. The movie manages its heaviest burdens with an underlying humor, a sweet performance from little Jakob Salvati, and an honest and understanding effort from Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. The two are a treasure on-screen, building a believably tense but slowly maturing relationship that, like the rest of the movie, develops easily but not without its interior challenges that add depth to what is, on the outside, a basic tearjerker. The picture balances that manipulated emotion with its deeper plot points beautifully, crafting a seamless movie that builds it all in stride and harmony. Is there more than a little movie magic at play? Yes. Does the film yank at the heartstrings like there's no tomorrow? Of course. Does it matter? No. What matters is the sincerity, the purpose, and the ease and magic with which it all comes together. Few films can match Little Boy in terms of its heartfelt completeness and depth of story, its tangible and relatable themes of life and death and uncertainty and fear, its gentle push through the pains and blossoming understanding of how life works and how faith can play an important part in countering life's most punishing blows. It's a little treasure of a film that bighearted audiences will adore.

Little Boy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Little Boy is part of an increasingly rare breed these days: a movie shot on film. The Blu-ray results are expectedly spectacular. Light grain retention is constant and pleasant, not only providing an attractive and organic film-like sheen (as opposed to flat digital) but also helping to accentuate the film's large assortment of heavily textured elements, including period clothes, wrinkled and worn faces, and 1940s wood and brick structures and accents. Image clarity is outstanding and sharpness is constant. Colors are attractive and vibrant with a noticeably warm push that hints at sepia. Blown out backgrounds -- brighter elements in particular -- in a few scenes help further shape an almost dreamlike and vintage visual flavor. One or two pops and speckles appear but are in no way troublesome. The image appears free of any anomalies in the way of blocking, banding, aliasing, etc. It's a shame more new movies aren't shot on film, because Blu-ray really does such movies right. Little Boy is a breath of fresh air in a stuffy digital age.

Little Boy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Little Boy's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is pleasing and engaging. The track features a wide spectrum of sound elements, from hushed environmental ambience to heavy rattles and booms. Minor exterior details like chirping birds or passing background traffic are effortlessly immersive and gently pull the listener into the film's small-town California location. A few action scenes overseas yield hefty gunfire and a few prominent explosions, with the latter sending a good bit debris around the stage. Another large rumble at a key point in the movie sends a positive and extended rattle through the listing area to good quality effect. Midrange sound effects like chugging machinery or rolling ocean waves enjoy precisely detailed elements and realistic placement. Music is well spaced and clarity is high, whether light, airy notes or deeper, more involved beats. Dialogue delivery is satisfyingly clear, robust, and center-focused. This is a highly enjoyable track from Universal that supports the film very well.

Little Boy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Little Boy contains deleted scenes, a short animated feature, and a thank-you page for the film's financial backers. Inside the Blu-ray case, buyers will find a DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV/iTines digital copy.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p): 'Ben Eagle' Full Episode (1:36), Drill Magic (2:50), Like Brothers (0:37), Atomic Newsreel (1:22), Sad Montage (2:09), and Rocket (1:34).
• Animated Short: Snack Attack (1080p, 4:37): A fun feature pitting an elderly lady against a stubborn vending machine and a thieving teenager.
• Special Thanks To Our Little Boy Ambassadors (1080p, 1:55): Credits for the film's investors.

Little Boy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Little Boy isn't necessarily a religious film. It intertwines elements of Christian faith, sure, but there's an equal emphasis on more earthly ideas of faith -- represented by the Hashimoto character -- and even a bit of magic and (what can be described as) coincidence. But faith -- real, deep, down, unflinching faith held close to the heart and spoken of positively and consistently -- is at the movie's center. It's a beautiful picture, well made, genuine, and honest. It certainly nudges and manipulates but it does so with the most sincere of intentions. The result is a fine film, a timeless film, one that audiences will carry in their hearts and minds for a long time after seeing it. Universal's Blu-ray release of Little Boy offers superb video and audio. Supplements are unfortunately limited. Still, this release comes very strongly recommended.