Weekend At Bernie’s (Blu-ray Review)
Hilarious performances by Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman make this comedy a “good old, knockdown slapstick” (The Hollywood Reporter)! It sounded like a great weekend away at their boss Bernie’s beachside pleasure palace. But when working stiffs Richard and Larry (McCarthy and Silverman) arrive to find a real stiff – their murdered boss – they’re forced to concoct a crazy scheme to avoid being implicated and/or dead themselves! With Bernie propped up and his death effectively covered up, Richard and Larry’s weekend escape becomes exactly that, as they dodge curious babes, a curtain of bullets and one confused hit man!
Film 
Larry (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard (Jonathan Silverman) are best friends who work for a big corporation. When they discover that someone in the building is skimming 2 million dollars from the company’s bank accounts they report it to their boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who is also the president of the company. Bernie assures them that it will be taken care of and asks them if they want to spend the weekend at his beach house to party – all as a thank you for being diligent in their work. The boys agree to the offer but Bernie has other plans.
What Larry and Richard don’t know is that Bernie is the one who has been stealing from the company and Bernie has set up a hit on them at the beach house. Things also complicate themselves when Bernie is suspected of having an affair with a mafia boss’s wife. A hit is ordered on Bernie that overrides the initial hit order that was set-up for Larry and Richard. It truly is one wacky game show. Now not to spoil anything since it’s pretty obvious by the promotional materials that Bernie does indeed get himself perished, which lead to Larry and Richard having to create the facade that he is still alive.
In life Bernie was a very popular fella that loved to party and be around the beautiful people. Larry and Richard have never been around the “beautiful people,” so they pretend that Bernie is still alive by using his dead body as a glorified prop-marionette. Weekend At Bernie’s has transcended popular culture 25 years since it’s release, but when viewing the film for this review, it wasn’t all that funny as I remembered it as a kid. The trailer is funny and I did chuckle at Bernie’s expense every once in a while but as a raunchy explicit comedy Weekend At Bernie’s is tame by today and yesterday’s standards. It’s PG-13, too.
Some of the gags do work but most do not. Larry and Richard are annoying jerks and even Catherine Mary Stewart, who I loved in Night of the Comet, can’t elevate the material any higher than what she’s given to work with. I would suggest renting Weekend At Bernie’s if you’re at all curious about what the fuss is about if you were not already alive back in 1989. I love a good nostalgia trip but the keyword is: GOOD. Weekend At Bernie’s is mediocre.
Video
Encoding: AVC MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Clarity/Detail: Weekend At Bernie’s looks better than most catalog titles – it’s not reference material but it does look substantially better than the typical catalog Blu-ray release.
Depth: This is a “bright” presentation; it does take place at the beach for about 90% of its running time. The sun, the water, the babes, etc., the Blu-ray does what it can to keep up. I think it does a decent job.
Black Levels: Black levels crush a bit but again it’s inherent to the source.
Color Reproduction: Color levels are decent and check out those garish late 80’s outfits. Yuck!
Flesh Tones: Flesh tones look healthy, and even Bernie, who is obviously immune to riga mortis, looks good for a dead guy.
Noise/Artifacts: Yes, the year was 1989, so expect a good amount of debris and dirt on the film print. It’s all inherent to the source material.
Audio 
Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD MA 2.0, Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Dynamics: This is a lossless stereo soundtrack and it does the job – if the poppy synth track has some good separation, as does the rest of the film itself.
Low Frequency Extension: N/A
Surround Sound Presentation: N/A
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue shines but keep an ear out for the many instances of obvious sound looping.
Extras
Extras? No, you’ve got the wrong number. There’s only a trailer here. *hangs up*
- Theatrical Trailer (HD, 2:36)
Summary
Weekend At Bernie’s was not as funny as I was hoping t would be all these many years later. The only gags that work are the ones with Bernie actually in them. Outside of that the film is a bore. The Blu-ray has average video, with below average sound. I’m not sure why this didn’t get a 5.1 release. The extras are non-existent, with exception to the trailer. If you’re feeling nostalgic then Weekend At Bernie’s may work but be warned it doesn’t really hold up well.
Film score of only 2?! This one is a classic! But yeah PG-13 is lame just like Expendables 3 will be 🙁
I hate this movie.
And remember how Stallone threatened to make both previous Expendables PG-13 (Dont’ worry about it)
I thought this weekend’s announcement wasn’t a threat, but confirmation Expendables 3 is PG-13? I would hope it isn’t.
Or like Winter Soldier, Insidious and Dark Knight. PG-13 is just so awful. I don’t deny it can be a bummer to hear, but I’ll see Expendables 3 or any others before saying it’s a terrible movie purely based on rating.
Aaron is on the money too btw. And if it does go PG-13, we know we’ll get an uncut version on Blu-ray…so not that maddening. What’s the point? Box office $$$