Why So Blu?

Planes: Fire And Rescue (Blu-ray Review)

Well, I never saw the original Planes, so right out of the gate know that my only experience with the Disney Planes films is this one here today.  The original film really didn’t catch my interest as it looked like it was a cash in of Cars, which I’m not too big a fan of.  And also it came and went and nobody really seemed to care or craft any buzz or praise for it.  I didn’t even think it took the box office too big, but apparently it did good enough to get this sequel.  That, or like Cars, the toys were just selling like hot cakes and they needed another go round.  Even being a novice going into a sequel blindly without knowledge of the first, I was still open to this Dane Cook-led film to surprise me.  Sometimes lowered expectations can help in situations.

Film 

Dusty Crophopper (yes, you read that right) is excelling at plane racing, winning awards left and right.  He’s also pushing himself to the limit.  Limits, that are pushing his gearbox to too many extremes and its wearing out.  This gearbox is also old and the parts are no longer made anymore.  Dusty’s mechanic installs a warning light that prevents him from pushing himself any further.  He gets mad and flies off to try and defy his new restrictions.  During the flight, he crashes and causes a fire.  Feeling guilty, Dusty looks into training to become a firefighting plane.

Planes: Fire And Rescue for all intents and purposes really reminded me A LOT of the first Cars movie in its plot.  Gosh, the beats almost feel verbatim.  Hotshot vehicle becomes humbled by wandering into a small town and assimilating into their culture.  Its really all there and the themes and lessons seem to all pretty much coincide.  No, Cars didn’t invent that wheel and Planes: Fire And Rescue isn’t the first to borrow the motif, but if ever the latter wanted to distance itself form just being the “other” Disney vehicle franchise, this isn’t the movie to do it.

The voice cast is pretty fun here.  This might be one of Dane Cook’s finest performances.  You also get Julie Bowen who hams it up every chance she gets and seems to be having a blast and going all in with this animated feature.  They pretty much brought in Ed Harris to play Ed Harris here and he always brings that sense of control and seasoned leaders ship to everything and Planes is no exception.  I always smile when character actor vets like Stacy Keach and Curtis Armstrong show up in anything, so I welcomed them easily here.  Oh, and Teri Hatcher’s in this although I didn’t realize it until the closing credits were going by on my screen.

I didn’t think Planes: Fire And Rescue was absolutely terrible, but it did make Cars look like Finding Nemo in terms of quality.  And I tend to softly judge these animated films that I might think are mainly aimed at kids with little to offer for adults.  Planes sort of wants to be the latter but its not trying real hard.  Also not helping was my 2.5 year old son I watched this with seemed excited to check it out, only to lose his attention and go do other things while it played.  He’s usually a terrific movie watcher when he’s watching something for the first time too.  My man was down with the first act, but then began to wander and lose interest during act 2.  So, take that little smidge of information how you will.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Clarity/Detail:   As expected, this is a sharp and perfectly detailed animated feature.  Every spec down to the muddy detail is accounted for.  Reference quality picture.

Depth: Foreground and background images share the screen as clear as can be.  Distance provides a 3 dimensional experience even in 2D.

Black Levels:  Blacks are ideal and accurately represented.

Color Reproduction:  Colors are all luscious and popping just as you’d expect.  They’re very solid and quite distinct.

Flesh Tones:  N/A

Noise/Artifacts:  Perfect

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English 7.1 DTS-HD MA, English 2.0 Descriptive Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital,

Subtitles:  English, English SDH, French, Spanish

Dynamics:  Ladies and gents, we have reference quality audio.  This 7.1 track is marvelous.  There was a scene where Dusty crashed into a forest, and hot dang I felt as if I was in the cockpit brushing by the trees.  This track feels like one of those interactive movie rides its that involving.  This one should knock your socks off in a few spots.

Low Frequency Extension: Engines rumble and crashes are woomped and bumped by your subwoofer.

Surround Sound Presentation: This 7.1 track makes sure to give you the best out of every speaker.  The race at the beginning runs circles around your viewing room area.  At many different times the rear and side speakers are active.  All the speakers have fun with interplay in tune to what is happening on the screen.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Dialogue is crisp, clean, loud and volume placement is perfect.

Extras 

Planes: Fire And Rescue comes with a DVD copy and Digital Copy of the film.  These extras are aplenty, but know that they are very kid friendly and not amounting to much when its all said and done.

“Vitaminamulch: Air Spectacular” (HD, 5:55) – A little short cartoon featuring the characters in the film.

Welcome To Piston Peak! (HD, 2:49) – A mock commercial for the setting the movie takes place in.

“CHoPs” TV Promo (HD, :45) – A commercial for a TV show that exists in the Planes universe.

Air Attack: Firefighters From The Sky (HD, 4:47) – Goes over the research on wildfire rescue done to prepare for the film.

Deleted Scenes With Filmmaker Intro (HD, 4:32) – All of these are not in finalized animation or storyboard form.

“Still I Fly” Music Video By Spencer Lee (HD, 1:31)

Animated Shorts – These promotional shorts introduce some of the new characters in the sequel.

• “Dipper” (HD, 1:45)
• “Smoke Jumpers” (HD, 1:44)

Summary 

While I’m not too big on this movie, Disney has put together a pretty rad release for this movie.  The presentation is outstanding and truly reference quality (If not very close to).  Its 7.1 track is truly remarkable.  You get a nice handful of extras.  Also, with kids having the alternate media and digital copy helps a lot too.  If you’re into the Planes movie or just this one, you’re getting pretty much every penny out of this release.