5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown.
Starring: Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato, Gerald McRaneyRomance | 100% |
Drama | 2% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The logical answer is that Nicholas Sparks is a secret heir to the Kleenex fortune (there must be a Kleenex fortune, musn’t there?). How else to explain the author’s seemingly inerrant ability to tug on the heartstrings rather mercilessly in stories that tend to exploit the vagaries of fate and that time honored tradition of unrequited (or at least substantially obstacle prone) romance? The Best of Me follows in a long line of cinematic adaptations of Sparks’ novels, films like Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, The Last Song, The Lucky One and Safe Haven. Simply perusing the covers of the films released on Blu-ray thus far will offer the discerning viewer a quick visual summary of what’s in store in most Sparks outings, namely impossibly beautiful people falling in and out of love, with various melodramatic elements lingering in the background that throw a kink or two (or three) into any plans for a simple happily ever after. Sparks’ rather rabid legion of fans will find nothing new in that regard in The Best of Me, though it’s rather interesting that this Blu-ray release does in fact offer a happy ending in an alternate cut of the film that is decidedly different from the bittersweet denouement of the theatrical version, a version which is more or less guaranteed to turn on the waterworks in most viewers and therefore add to Sparks’ assumed Kleenex based fortune.
The Best of Me is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa, the film looks ravishingly beautiful quite a bit of the time, making even things like a rusty oil rig in the middle of the sea surprisingly picturesque. Director Michael Hoffman and Oliver Stapleton play with contrast and color boosting in some of the sequences in Tuck's improbably gorgeous garden, resulting in some incredibly vivid reds and purples in the flowers. Close-ups offer excellent fine detail, offering nicely delineated textures on clothing and elements like the crags in McRaney's face very clearly. As tends to be the case with digitally shot features, there's some slight murk in dimly lit scenes (particularly some of the interior scenes in Tuck's house), but perhaps surprisingly some of the darkest nighttime sequences actually offer good contrast, shadow detail and general detail. A couple of shots which I assume were green screened (like Dawson on the water tower) have backgrounds that look just slightly soft at times. There are no issues with image instability or compression artifacts.
The Best of Me's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is a rather front heavy mix, though the ubiquitous source cues and underscore tend to help fill out the surround channels, as do occasional ambient environmental sound effects. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and while the track isn't overly showy in any way, fidelity remains excellent and there are no issues of any kind to report.
Yeah, I teared up at the end of The Best of Me. Wanna make something of it? I kid, of course, but there's simply no denying the fact that Sparks knows how to pull the strings to evoke a lachrymose reaction. What's so fascinating about this Blu-ray release is the "happy" version that's also included. It's no accident that that version never saw the theatrical light of day, for it subverts the very core of tragedy which seems to subsume a lot of Sparks' stories. If you're a Sparks fan (and they are legion), you'll probably love The Best of Me. Technical merits are very strong in any case, and the supplemental package is also agreeable.
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