Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Woody Woodpecker Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 4, 2019

Woody Woodpecker is one of those handful of indelible cartoon characters that has been around forever (since 1940, to be exact) and delighted generations of television viewers with a lovable design, familiar antics, and a trademark refrain. The character hasn't undergone a tremendous evolution in that time, remaining fairly faithful to Walter Lantz's design even through the transition to several different television programs, but it's not a surprise that the character takes a step backwards in the cringe-worthy live action/digital animation hybrid film Woody Woodpecker. Here is a painfully unoriginal and unimaginative movie that removes the characters' innate charms and replaces them with nonstop bodily function humor and a trite storyline that involves disrupting his natural habitat, a greedy lawyer and his glam girlfriend who despises being in "God's country," the lawyer's estranged son, a kindly park ranger, and a pair of bumbling poachers. The script is unequivocally unoriginal, cobbled together from lame and leftover ideas that together yield one of the most unsurprisingly unwatchable films of 2017.

Can't catch me!

Real estate lawyer Lance Walters (Timothy Omundson) has been fired after making public remarks dismissing the value of conservation. But no matter. He's so wealthy he can simply start again and decides to take his urbanite girlfriend Vanessa (Thaila Ayala) and his estranged son Tommy (Graham Verchere) to Washington state's Canadian border region where he plans to build a lavish eyesore of a lakefront home and flip it for profit. That news doesn't sit well with local park ranger Samantha Bartlett (Jordana Largy), but she's powerless to stop Lance, who owns the property and may do with it as he wishes. When construction begins, a rare local woodpecker (voiced by Eric Bauza) fears for his habitat's extinction and works feverishly to disrupt the construction process. He befriends Tommy, who names the woodpecker "Woody." As Woody and Lance engage in a battle of wits and wills and Lance learns that killing the animal would land him in prison, he hires a pair of bumbling poachers, Nate and Otis Grimes (Scott McNeil and Adrian Glynn McMorran), to capture the bird and release it back into the wild far, far away from his home. But little does he know the poachers are keen on the idea of selling the bird on the black market for a hefty profit.

Woody Woodpecker was not made with much, if any, of an artistic vision in mind. The film exists for no other reason than to capitalize on a familiar name. It's a profit-driven picture through-and-through, and it did make 50% above its budget in box office returns, a piddly number in total but...mission accomplished? The film offers nothing of value for the keen moviegoer. It's entirely stale and predictable as it trudges through the motions. The characters are cardboard cutouts, imbued with zero original personality or purpose, each fitting into well-worn stereotypes that allow the title character to engage in comical antics, not comical within the established confines of the character's longstanding history in the animation world but comical by today's lower standards, which include endless flatulence jokes and Woody pooping on a poacher's ice cream cone.

The film gradually evolves from a battle of wits between Woody and Lance to the two meeting somewhere in the middle and eventually finding themselves fighting a common enemy in the poachers. The interactions between the humans and the digital woodpecker serviceably advance the story. The actors do little with their roles beyond going through the motions, understandable considering that the script gives them no opportunity to do otherwise, and the movie's stringent approach to characterization additionally offers no avenues of departure. Omundson and Verchere build and evolve a decent enough rapport as the estranged father-son tandem, limited mostly by the manipulative machinations that at least give the movie a semblance of heart. The digital effects are by-and-large acceptable, with Woody fitting into the environment and working with human actors to about the level of sophistication one would expect of a smaller budget Comedy.

Stay tuned after the credits for a bonus vintage Woody Woodpecker short titled "Niagara Fools," which is vastly superior to the movie.

Woody Woodpecker Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The digitally photographed Woody Woodpecker delivers intensely bold natural greens and a fully saturated broader palette at that. The film opens in Woody's tree trunk home, filled with wooden objects and accents, and shifts to lush forest area where leaves, moss, terrain, and all variety of natural elements present with intense hues. Additional colors -- blue dresses and denim jackets, Woody's red feathery head, storefronts around town -- all yield firm, bold shades that give the image a visual punch. Details are very strong. Every texture is sharp and revealing, whether natural formations, manmade structures around town, skin details and facial hair, or clothing lines and seams. The image is plagued by a fair amount of noise which is often visible even in bright daylight exteriors. It's otherwise a screen-commanding picture.

Woody Woodpecker Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Woody Woodpecker's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack handles sonic duties capably and, usually, enjoyably. Natural ambience filters into the stage from all directions throughout. Listeners will appreciate light breezes, chirping birds, and rustling leaves as part of the general landscape. Additionally, workplace din follows suit with heavy machinery, chatty workers, and the general sounds of a building site pulling the listener into the construction process. The 5.1 configuration features these elements emanating from all speakers but never to an overpowering level. Sound traverses the stage with impressively seamless flow, maneuvering from one speaker to the next, at the 14-minute mark when Tommy first meets Woody, complete with some positive low end compliments when the woodpecker uses a trash can as a drum. Falling trees, whirring chainsaws, and the sounds of Woody zipping around the stage shape one of the more diverse and intense action scenes in the film in chapter three at the 22-minute mark. Bass and detail are not overpowering in such scenes, but there's ample weight to the heaviest effects. Music enjoys robust clarity and good stage width with minor surround support. Dialogue is clear, detailed, well prioritized, and center-focused.

Woody Woodpecker Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Woody Woodpecker contains three featurettes. The special features must be a accessed in-film via the pop-up menu; no top menu screen is included. The release does not ship with DVD or digital copies or a slipcover.

• Guess Who? The Evolution of Woody (1080p, 5:35): A quick exploration of how the character came to be, the character's physical evolution over the years, the character's demeanor and shifts in voicing, the timeless physical humor in the character's arsenal, the classic laugh, and more.
• The Making of Woody Woodpecker (1080p, 3:12): A quick story run-through, Thaila Ayala's performance, creating the film's physical comedy routines, and more.
• Working with Woody (1080p, 2:49): Another short piece that explores designing the character specifically for this film.

Woody Woodpecker Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Movies don't ring much more hollow than Woody Woodpecker. The charming, classic cartoon character crashes and burns in this live action/animation hybrid that recycles trite script components and scrapes on through a predictably dull story with stock characters and uncreative action in support. The visuals are decent enough but there are much better movies of this type out there, including The Smurfs and Yogi Bear. Universal's Blu-ray does offer very good video and audio as well as a few extras. Skip it.