The Good

This film was a classic the moment it was a conceived.

The Bad

I thought the image quality was a little dark.The Pineapple Express ne of those movies that's just happens. Take a decent script, put in some very capable actors, throw in a wildcard director and that's what you get with this film about dope. Seth Rogen plays Dale, a process server who spends the majority of his day smoking buds. He has a young girlfriend and his tightest friend is a named Saul (James Franco). After witnessing a murder that has something to do with a brand of marijuana called the Pineapple Express, Dale and Saul go on the lamb. While trying to figure everything out, The Pineapple Express as a movie takes a different turn. It goes from being a buddy/stoner comedy to being an all out action assault. Eventually it reaches laughable proportions but that is entirely the point in this whimsical, smoke filled, fairy tale of a film.

Features

Extended & Alternate Scenes

With titles like "Private Miller" and "Asians in Van" these extended scenes were rightly cut from the film. While I think that an extended version of this movie is available somewhere, I think that the 112 minute version on this DVD was just right. I never felt that things lagged, but at the same time I didn't feel like I needed to see any more of what I was seeing. The laughs in this movie come in waves but for the most part these extended scenes seem better left out of the final cut.

Commentary with Filmmakers and Cast

Gag Reel

A gag reel on a DVD like this is almost de rigueur. While a lot of movies are made with "funny" people (or people who think they are funny) and there is an insistence on documenting their every move, usually that turns out to be quite masturbatory. With this movie the people on this gag reel are in fact funny, and the gags that happen are usually pieces of the set falling apart around them and not the actors merely mugging for the camera. Definitely worth a watch.

Making Of

Video

2.40:1 - Anamorphic Widescreen. This DVD looked dark to me. It might have something to do with the fact that I review Blu-ray discs now, but I thought that things might have looked better here. The colors had an orange tint and while this didn't take a way from the movie, in the theater I recall that things seemed much more bright and opened up. The image and the DVD compression sadly seemed somewhat overcooked.

Audio

Dolby Digital. Close Captioned. English and French 5.1. Subtitled in English and French. With the audio coming out of my one speaker, 13" TV set, I was pleasantly surprised when I realized I didn't need to turn the sound up that much. Things sounded good here without being overdone. While by the end of the movie things become a free for all (actionwise), the audio seemed to keep itself as mellow as the main characters it is documenting.

Package

Seth Rogen, James Franco and Danny McBride walk towards us amid a cloud of smoke on the front of this DVD cover. The back portion gives us 5 shots from this film, a small description, Special Features, a cast list and technical specs.

Final Word

When I first saw this movie in the theater I didn't know how much I liked it. I thought it was good, it made me laugh in parts, but I was more inspired by the direction that David Gordon Green brought to it. Upon watching it on DVD I found the whole experience to be much more enjoyable. I loved the way the actors interacted, I loved the story, and more to the point I found myself watching a movie that I had already seen and I didn't really know everything that was going to happen. In fact, this movie was so enjoyable on it's second go round that I am half considering watching it again just to keep the high going.

Whether you are a serious DVD collector or you just do it for fun, The Pineapple Express is a movie that you definitely want in your collection.