5.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 1.5 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
Things get raucously funny aboard the maiden flight of a black-owned airline, thanks to some last-minute passenger additions.
Starring: Tom Arnold, Kevin Hart, Method Man, Snoop Dogg, K.D. AubertComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 1.5 |
“Oh, stewardess, I speak jive.”
For baby boomers at least, one of the highlights of the supremely silly
Airplane! was the sight of one erstwhile June Cleaver, the always immaculately clad and imperturbably polite Barbara Billingsley,
uttering that classic line in a scene where two black men are experiencing discomfort on a flight but can’t be understood due to their
patois. Soul Plane takes a page both from Airplane! generally and this “jive talkin’” vignette specifically in an
occasionally amusing but mostly just noisy outing that sees a sad sack African American man named Nashwan Wade (Kevin Hart) experience a
flight from hell, one where his posterior is suction cupped into a toilet midflight (in an impossibly luxe and huge airplane restroom) and
his pet dog, consigned to the luggage compartment, is ejected from the hold and shredded to smithereens in the jet engine (something
Nashawn is able to witness because this airplane bathroom has a window). Injured both physically and emotionally, Nashawn sues the
airline and comes out a big winner, with enough of a nest egg to start his own company—NWA (that’s Nashawn Wade Airlines,
though the silly reference is actually one of the film’s better laughs). Nashawn’s business model caters to black folks, and the maiden flight of
NWA is supposedly poised to be a hip hop party of epic proportions. Surely Nashawn is about to experience yet another flight from hell, and,
no, I won’t stop calling him Shirley.
Soul Plane is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. Hart made some news at the time of the film's release by stating that bootlegging had really cut into the film's prospective box office, and some watching this generally commendable if occasionally problematic presentation may wonder if a few of those illicit elements somehow got stitched into the source materials for this offering. On the whole, this is actually one of the nicer looking catalog releases we've seen from Olive, with good to excellent clarity and sharpness, and an appealing and natural looking palette. The film's long "nightclub" sequence, one which takes up a huge portion of the film's second half, is bathed in deep blues and detail is noticeably minimized during these sections. From time to time sharpness is also somewhat variable, as is grain resolution, which varies from finely resolved to clumpy and noisy looking. Aside from these transitory anomalies, things look quite good, with very little in the way of age related wear and tear in either of the versions offered on this Blu-ray.
Both versions of Soul Plane included on this Blu-ray sport nicely active DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes. There are a glut of at times silly sound effects as well as some thump worthy tunes that exploit the low end quite effectively. While dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented, there are occasional slight prioritization problems, especially in the somewhat noisy party sequences. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range very wide for a comedy.
Hart fans may get enough of a kick out of Soul Plane to consider checking it out, but even they may find their patience stretched thin by too many gags that just go nowhere, not to mention a relentlessly raucous energy level that unfortunately too infrequently pays actual comedic dividends. Technical merits are generally strong and the supplemental package well stocked for those considering a purchase.
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