Why So Blu?

Jersey Boys (Blu-ray Review)

Jersey Boys has been an uber popular music for the last many years.  It travels city to city and wows and pleases audiences across the United States.  The film is a jukebox musical, meaning it features already established pop songs.  But, that’s because its telling the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons so you kinda have to be that type of a musical.  This film adaptation was once a passion project of Jon Favreau, but it wound up falling dead and never going anywhere.  Then, oddly it was resurrected and Clint Eastwood was the guy at the helm.  It seemed an odd marriage, and as you’ll see, it was one.  Personally, I’d never had the pleasure of seeing the stage production of Jersey Boys and I really don’t think this film was any sort of supplement.

Film 

The film Jersey Boys is an adaptation of the super popular musical of the same name.  The film tells the story of the music group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  One by one the film passes off narration between each of the group’s supporting members.  It tells the story from the early days of running mob jobs to the induction in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.  The film is supported by many of the famous songs the group made famous.

Jersey Boys winds up been an unenthusiastic, dull voyage of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons that feels almost ashamed and afraid to be a musical.  The film is devoid of an energy and feels like a series of stale and tired dramatic bickering scenes.  Many of the music numbers are cut short and are just straight mock ups of television or live performances that wind up being a thud.  The music performances feel very held down.  There’s a focus on keeping this grounded, but it feels incredibly held back.

The film feels like some youthful, fun musical that wound up getting interpreted by some old codger.  Oh wait.  Yes, I’m putting the blame for this film’s disappointment square on him.  I don’t know what Clint was doing here, but it feels like he’s trying to make a dramatic version of this musical instead of giving us the musical of it.  It ends up becomes a mix of uninteresting mafia scenes and your stereotypical “Behind The Music” adaptation.  There are also some incredibly laughable over the top melodramatic sequences that I had a hard time believing were a part of this in a straight drama.

Oh, but then at the end for the credits, the film finally becomes what it should have been all along.  A DAMN MUSICAL.  There’s a nice number on “Oh What A Night” with singing, dancing, fun and energy which is what this story is supposed to have been all along.  The film carried over plenty of actors from the stage version of Jersey Boys, but I can’t understand why as they’re not really going for that version.  All in all, I guess I’ve left this film scratching my head and pretty confused.

Jersey Boys isn’t some incompetent piece of garbage.  I hope you’re not taking that from my review.  Its just a confused and misguided effort.  The story the film tells is enough to just entertain on a mid range, Lifetime movie kind of level.  In the end, this film is a pretty big disappointment though.  What seemed to be something that on paper seemed a shew in and tailor made for Oscar bait is pretty much anything but.  Clint Eastwood being the wrong guy for the job is one thing, but this was an intentional walk to first base and he kept swinging at the pitches that were five feet away.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Clarity/Detail:  The film has a weird aesthetic that leads itself to a very soft and smooth looking quality.  There is detail and the image looks well defined, its just not very pretty.  I want to say something about resembling a DVD upconvert, but I’m not sure that’s a good analogy as this does look much better than that.  I think the transfer here does its job quite well (hence my higher scoring), its more the nature of the source material that had an odd unfriendly look to begin with.

Depth:  Depth is above average.  Many of the performance scenes on television feature a nice separation of the band and their surroundings.  A very 3-dimensional look.

Black Levels:  Blacks are really deep and hide plenty of detail when it comes to hair, clothing and surfaces.

Color Reproduction:  The film is very bleached out but manages to retain a nice bold array of colors.  Things are kept natural, so there’s a lot of blacks, greys and dull “normal, real life” looking colors.

Flesh Tones:  Skin tones are washed out, but consistent.  Some people turn out to be pretty bright.  There’s also not much detail to be found on the facial features, due to the nature of the aesthetic.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean

Audio 

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

Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese

Dynamics:  The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track features some real highs and then a lot of times just feels sort of normal.  There’s a moment early on where a car crashes into the front of a store and it sounds absolutely outstanding.  However, I was waiting for a lot of musical numbers in the film to “take off” but they just sort of sounded standard and merely “ok”.  This isn’t a bad track, but for being a film from 2014 and a musical, I really expecting something of an outstanding track and was left with a pedestrian one by modern standards.

Low Frequency Extension: Some extra lift is given to the bass and drums in the music, but also car crashes, doors shutting and engines humming.

Surround Sound Presentation:  For the most part just some ambiance and the score from the rear speakers.  Its  front loaded track, but has some good interaction and sound placement from the front speakers.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Dialogue is slightly lower in the mix, but clear and crisp.  The singing is nice, loose and clean.

Extras 

Jersey Boys comes with a DVD copy and UltraViolet Digital Copy of the film.

From Broadway To The Big Screen (HD, 22:57) – Focuses a lot on casting the film and the approach to adapting it to the big screen.  Interviews with the cast and Clint Eastwood included.

Too Good To Be True (HD, 4:51) – Focuses on the actor who played Norm Waxman and all the roles he played in the stage versions.  Also talks a little on how the music in the film was cherished by mafia men.

“Oh What A Night” (HD, 5:05) – A behind the scenes and interviews on the end credits sequence.

Summary 

I’m not a fan of this “musical” Jersey Boys at the hand of Clint Eastwood.  Its a very boring trudge through the story that has no energy at all.  There’s no way the stage show is anything like this in terms of presentation.  Speaking of that, the video transfer is a little weak, due a lot to the aesthetic of the film and the audio is good, but should be much better and impressive.  The extras are decent.  All in all, if you’re curious, I would definitely recommend renting it.  If you’re a Jersey Boys fan and collector, then you’re getting a decent package.