Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery Blu-ray Movie Review

Not much mystery, but lots of sweetness.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 17, 2012

Tone is notoriously difficult to decipher on the internet, as anyone who has forgotten to include a smiley face emoticon after a “joke” on a chat board will probably agree. So it probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise when my review of the previous Thomas & Friends Blu-ray, Thomas & Friends: Day of the Diesels, raised the ire of one of the press agents handling the release, despite the fact that the review was pretty clearly written with tongue firmly in cheek, and the added fact that I recommended that those without a sense of humor skip the main body of the review. I was taken to task for being “too hard on that poor little blue train” (that’s pretty much a verbatim quote), which I must admit in my rampant cynicism struck me as at least as funny as anything I posted in the review. So to all Thomas the Tank Engine fans (and they are legion), whether they represent the franchise formally as a press agent or not, let me state firmly on the record that the books, the television series and the more recent longer features (which usually clock in at around an hour each) are undeniably sweet, and they will no doubt fill the bill for any parents wanting to expose their kids to a non-threatening entertainment which will also gently introduce some valuable life lessons. That very sweetness may be one of the intrinsic obstacles some kids may have with the franchise, however. More and more, children have been exposed to all sorts of snarkiness on television and the movies that have altered their naïve sensibilities to the point where Thomas’ “kinder, gentler” ethos may not have the foothold in the general childlike consciousness as it once probably did. The Thomas outings are completely irony free, they have no “bite” or subtext, and they are deliberately old fashioned, probably no more so than in the fact that they feature trains, for crying out loud.

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery is frankly not going to give Agatha Christie a run for her money. While Thomas does in fact don the hat (or would that be the conductor’s cap?) of a sort of sleuth, the typical Thomas gentleness is well on display in this tale that involves Thomas trying to first figure out who a mysterious little train is and then what this train has done that has put it in fear of being exiled from Sodor. (Let me state up front, what follows is a joke: has anyone else noticed how similar “Sodor” sounds to “Mordor”, especially in the quasi-Scottish brogue that some of the Thomas characters have?)

This Thomas enterprise has its usual fair share of what passes for excitement in the land of Sir Topham Hatt, in this case the felicitously named Blondin Bridge losing a keystone and tumbling to bits and pieces as a train manically charges over it, attempting to escape ruin before the bridge vanishes into a pile of rubble. That catastrophe actually sets a little set of dominoes in motion, one which ultimately brings Thomas into contact with the spritely little green train, whose name turns out to be Luke. Luke is hiding out on Blue Mountain for reasons which Thomas must not only ferret out, but ultimately work to rectify. As with so many Thomas entertainments, there’s a degree of misunderstanding involved, and Thomas helps to set everything aright, albeit not without an obstacle or two getting in the way.

One thing that is not a joke which I personally find just a little questionable about the Thomas franchise is its emphasis on utilitarianism, something I also brought up in my review of both Thomas & Friends: Day of the Diesels and Thomas & Friends: Misty Island Rescue. Do we really want to imbue our kids with a philosophy that their self-worth is contingent upon them being “really useful”? My hunch is the Reverend Wilbert Awdry, the man who invented the characters in his guise as a storyteller to his son Christopher, was referencing a Christian ethos of altruism and brotherly love in this regard, but more often than not the television series and now these longer features makes being “really useful” akin to being a worker drone. It’s just a slightly troubling issue with me personally, and I’m sure there are a glut of Thomas fans who would consider me to be seriously “off the rails” in my reaction to this aspect of the franchise.

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery makes some salient points about friendship, harboring secrets which fray at one’s psyche, and the relatively devastating effects of letting a misunderstanding color years of one’s existence. It’s all done quietly and gently, in the best Thomas tradition. Bright, colorful and sweetly engaging, Thomas may slightly trouble older souls like me who have obviously lost their intrinsic childlike innocence, but there’s no mystery as to how entertaining younger viewers will find this latest Thomas the Tank Engine offering.

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Hit Entertainment and Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. All of the Thomas Blu-rays thus far have offered generally very sharp imagery, but Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery has incrementally upped the ante, resulting in the best looking Thomas "feature" yet. Part of this may in fact be due to the progressive presentation; previous Thomas videos have offered interlaced outings. Backgrounds have generally been given a bit more detail than usual, and the trains' facial experessions also offer more variety, as well as some nice rendering which gives them a sort of rubbery texture. This is a totally different kind of CGI from, say, Pixar, but the craftsmen who put this piece together are to be lauded for gracing Blue Mountain Mystery with some bright and appealing colors, which pop very well on this high definition presentation. While this rarely rises to the impeccable levels of the best CGI, the Thomas team continues to grow and develop the franchise in some smart ways (the little puffs of steam emanating from the trains' underbellies are a nice touch), and Blue Mountain Mystery benefits from a charming and enjoyable video presentation.

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio mix which offers some passingly effective surround activity whenever a train huffs and chuffs by, with frequent panning effects following the little engines to and fro. The feature also offers the typical two generic sounding songs (which are also offered as sing-alongs in the supplemental features), and those sound fine. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented and the overall mix is well prioritized. There's a bit more dynamic range in this outing than in the usual Thomas release, courtesy of a bridge crumbling early in the video and, later, a ferocious storm which plays an important part in the plot development.

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Blue Mountain Hide and Peep Game is a simple hide and seek game where the player can access various arrows via their remote and choose where they think various characters or objects are hiding.


• Learn About Standard and Narrow Gauge Engines (HD; 2:31) is a sweet little tutorial educating kids about the different gauges of track.


• Blue Mountain Mystery Karaoke Music Video (HD; 2:09)


• Working Together Karaoke Music Video (HD; 2:09)

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery will easily fill the bill for any parents wanting to plop their kids down in front of a video that will keep younger viewers more or less entranced for an hour or so. Sweet, gentle and completely lacking in irony, if also not very ambitious, Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery has the usual Thomas gamut of lovable characters and one or two exciting set pieces which will give tots a mini-adrenaline rush. These videos are obviously geared toward very young viewers, and as such the crusty opinion of a relatively elderly cynical reviewer should probably be taken with a large pillar of salt. This new release offers the best looking Thomas yet. The supplemental features and audio are about what they've been on previous Thomas Blu-ray releases. For Thomas fans and parents with toddlers, Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery comes Recommended.