5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Looking for any way to get away from the life and town he was born into, Tripp, a high school senior, builds a Monster Truck from bits and pieces of scrapped cars. After an accident at a nearby oil-drilling site displaces a strange and subterranean creature with a taste and a talent for speed, Tripp may have just found the key to getting out of town and a most unlikely friend.
Starring: Lucas Till, Jane Levy, Thomas Lennon, Amy Ryan, Holt McCallanyFamily | 100% |
Comedy | 96% |
Adventure | 34% |
Sport | 9% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Monster Trucks will inevitably be compared to Transformers by anyone who knows anything about Michael Bay's franchise reboot. Both are Paramount films, both are heavy on the digital effects, and both feature a teenage boy coming into possession of a very special vehicle that helps him get the girl and save the day. Monster Trucks certainly lacks the dazzle, but it's a bit heavier on the heart. It's also a fairly generic, predictable, and, honestly, an unnecessary movie, qualities that would be better compared to some of Bay's later Transformer films. Monster Trucks, oft delayed and shelved after completion before finally releasing in late 2016 after being slated for a mid-2015 debut, can't escape its pedestrian plot and style doldrums. It's adequately cheerful and sincere, even a bit fun, but the film feels painfully generic as bit maneuvers through all of the staple plot mechanics and character details that even its quasi-symbiotic core story cannot overcome.
Monster Trucks dazzles with an abundantly colorful 1080p transfer. The presentation's strength is unquestionably its bold, accurate colors. Bright greens, blues, and reds are in abundance, particularly on clean showroom-shine truck paint jobs. They're all spectacularly rich, and it's a shame a UHD didn't release alongside to to see what HDR enhancement could have done for one of the most eye-catching color schemes yet on Blu-ray. Additional colors are quite pleasing, too, including healthy green grasses, colorful attire, and general background information around a scrap yard, in a garage, or around several other environments throughout the movie. The digital source is clean but never flat or unattractively smooth. There's a quality sense of depth to the image. Clarity is superb and sharpness comes effortlessly. Environmental, clothing, and facial detailing is precise and appreciably complex. Even the digital creatures are wonderfully realized, yielding plenty of skin texturing, slime, and other small details that bring them to life. Nighttime black levels are beautifully deep. Skin tones appear healthy and accurate. Very light noise is visible in a couple of places -- a shot through a screen door early in the film is one example -- but the image is otherwise spot-on accurate and one of the finer presentations the format has to offer.
Monster Trucks pulls onto Blu-ray with a quality Dolby Atmos soundtrack. Overhead engagement is often more in minor support, creating fuller music and environmental effects, but there are several occurrences when direct overhead presence and movement is obvious: when Tripp first meets the creature and later at about the 1:22:25 mark when there's a distinct front-to-back sensation that fully engages the top end. The track's more generalized attributes are largely excellent. Music plays with satisfying width and surround wrap. Clarity is excellent and the track is never timid about pushing each note hard. The track is further never wanting for greater activity, producing multidirectional effects and offering plenty of pinpoint, location-specific elements throughout its many action scenes and high-speed climax. The only real downside is that the low end seems held in check, unable to truly explode as needed. A very large and very heavy toolbox is toppled over in one early moment, and it barely registers. Many other elements that would seem primed for thumping, heavy bass sometimes fall flat. On the flip side, the low end does engage on occasion. Throaty engine roars and creature effects are suitably deep, for example. Dialogue is clear and well prioritized with natural front-center positioning. The audio score is probably more realistically a 4.25 rather than the listed 4.0 which feels too low; 4.5 seems a tad high.
Monster Trucks contains a healthy allotment of bonus content. A DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV/iTunes digital copy are
included
with purchase. Two heavy duty stickers are also included in the case.
Monster Trucks is one of those movies that's hardly great but far from bad. It will be mocked in some circles, loved in others, but one cannot deny its heart, good nature, well meaning narrative, and agreeable characters. Yet one cannot deny its generic story supports and streamlined narrative content. On the whole, it's favorable cinema fodder, a movie that wasn't really "necessary" at any level but one that should please its target audience and leave adults at least satisfied that it tried while making clear that it has its heart in the right place. Paramount's Blu-ray features rock-solid video and audio as well as a decent selection of bonus content. Worth a look.
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