The Change-Up could have been a fun movie, there is room for gross out humour, especially in body switching movies like this, but it was handled in a way that made most of the jokes fall flat. Bateman, Reynolds and Mann all try their best, but the scenarios, dialogue and movie itself is just not terribly funny. Hopefully when this type of film comes in style again (seems to happen every few years) someone else can have greater success with the formula.
The Video
While the film is of below average quality this excellent transfer certainly is not. I was very surprised with how crisp and detailed the imagery was throughout the film. Blacks are deep and inky, clothing, wrinkles and hair pop from the screen and there is nearly no digital noise to speak of. I have been really impressed with Universal’s Blu-ray releases lately, they are some of the best looking in the business and The Change-Up is no exception. The movie looks so great it makes the cringe inducing scenes nearly painful to watch and that is both a blessing and a curse.
The Audio
Also impressive is the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track featured on the Blu-ray release. This is not an action film so there are no room shaking explosions but there is plenty of dialog and chaos that comes across very nicely. The audio mix is well balanced with conversations always clear amidst the rest of the audio experience. Rear speakers are used with minimal but fairly effective results giving us a surround experience that gets the job done. When the room is filled with babies or other crazy things the audio really shines, most of the time though it is a simple, but high quality, experience.
The Extras
Ooh boy, the extras are slim pickings here with an unintentionally funny commentary track and a gag reel being the highlight. Seems the studio knew what they had on their hands and didn’t feel the need to invest in many bells and whistles for the Blu-ray release.
- Unrated Version: Shown as a completely separate feature, with a warning (are you sure you want to watch the unrated version?) and all the unrated version has 5 extra minutes. I watched only the unrated version (and will never watch it again) so I could not tell you what is deemed extra content here.
- Audio Commentary: Director David Dobkin performs a solo commentary which is fairly dry but is amusing in how he tries to defend/justify some of the weaker scenes. What would have been truly great would be to have Reynolds and Bateman joining in and riffing on the movie, but that is simply not good business.
- Time for a Change (HD, 7 minutes): A very marketing driven feature where the cast and crew try to sell the film while continually mentioning how raw and R-rated it is.
- Family Matter (HD, 5 minutes): A look at the babies and the ridiculous antics they were up to in this film.
- Fist Fight Deleted Scene (HD, 7 minutes): A silly and overlong and lame fight scene between Reynolds and Batemen.
- Gag Reel (HD, 5 minutes): Funnier than the movie itself and the only really great extra.
- My Scenes Bookmarking
- BD-Live Functionality
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