5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 1.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
Marley is back for more tail-wagging fun, and this time he speaks! That's right, the "world's worst dog" has a frisky voice and an attitude to match. Join Marley for his mischievous puppy years, as he and his summer pal, Bodi Grogan, wreak havoc on a neighborhood dog contest.
Starring: Travis Turner, Donnelly Rhodes, Merrilyn Gann, Alex Zahara, Grayson RussellFamily | 100% |
Comedy | 90% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
Man’s-best-friend sob story Marley & Me recently made it to the #5 spot in a BBC Magazine poll of movies that make men cry—beating out the likes of Field of Dreams, Chariots of Fire, and Rocky—but the completely unnecessary prequel The Puppy Years will make you bawl for a different reason: it’s a soulless, excruciatingly awful straight-to-video cash-in that has next to nothing to do with its warmhearted, emotion-milking predecessor. To be fair, although Marley & Me carried a family-friendly PG rating, it was more geared toward animal-loving adults, while The Puppy Years, as you might imagine, panders to the 5-and-under crowd. And boy does it ever pander. This time around, yellow lab Marley is a rambunctious pup who talks—complete with borderline-creepy CGI mouth movements—and spends an inordinate amount of time farting. The film owes less to the original Marley & Me than it does to last year’s execrable Marmaduke, which set something of a new low for the flatulent talking dog sub-genre. The sole saving grace of The Puppy Years is that no one ever plays or mentions “Who Let the Dogs Out?,” but I assume that’s only because this extremely low-budget production couldn’t afford to license the song.
Naturally, since this is a comparatively low budget production, The Puppy Years simply isn't going to look as good as the $60 million Marley & Me. Still, cheap cinematography and flat lighting aside, there's nothing technically wrong with the film's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, which certainly won't set your plasma screen ablaze with color and clarity, but seems to be true to its source. I couldn't find any verification online, but I think it's safe to assume the film was shot digitally, and this looks to be the case. The image is generally bright and clean, with noise showing up in some of the darker scenes, but never to the point of distraction. Color is realistic and dense, with decent black levels and okay contrast, and while the image is rarely tack sharp, you will notice fine detail in the usual places—namely, skin and clothing textures. Noise reduction and edge enhancement are sparsely used—if at all—and I didn't notice any blatant compression issues. The Puppy Years isn't exactly eye candy, but I doubt the five-year-olds watching will mind.
Marley & Me: The Puppy Years arrives on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that delivers exactly what you'd expect from this kind of production—a serviceable presentation that gets the basics right but never impresses by going above and beyond the call of sonic duty. The most important element of the mix is dialogue, and there are no problems here; the vocals are all clean and balanced and easy to understand. The soundtrack is made up of dippy, cheaply-licensed pop tunes, and the music sounds okay for what it is, although it's never particularly rich or immersive. The rear channels get almost no action—a stereo mix would've sufficed—but you will hear occasional ambient effects, like barking and quiet outdoorsy sounds. Nothing major. There are no major problems—no hissing, drop-outs, crackles, etc.—and in that limited sense, this track is successful as doing what it needs to do. The disc includes optional English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles.
Marley & Me: The Puppy Years has naught to do with the 2008 drama-comedy starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, a film known to bring grown-ass men to tears. Rather, it's a quick cash-in prequel that forgoes a meaningful story in favor of the novelty factor of talking animals, and it's aimed exclusively at kids too young to know how bad it really is. (Look! The dog just farted in the pool! Gross!) For now, the film is exclusively available at Walmart and on Walmart.com, so you'll have to track it down there if you absolutely must buy it.
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