The Good

The three female stars of the film have a certain amount of healthy sass and charm.

The Bad

Did this movie really need to come out on Blu-ray?Gayle (Amy Poehler), Becky (Parker Posey) and Judi (Rachel Dratch) are three women who have gone through life happy, but they've never fit in. They don't have perfect faces, perfect bodies or any of the other things that the perfect people in life seem to have. So when Becky is given the job of chaperoning Ashley (Amber Tamblyn), her bosses daughter, to South Padre Island for Spring Break, she convinces Gayle and Judi to come along because she sees this as way to be cool like they always wanted to be. Along the way they realize that acceptance into clubs and cliques isn't everything that it's cracked up to be, and maybe being different and original isn't such a bad thing after all.

Features

Commentary Track

Director Ryan Shiraki and Rachel Dratch do the commentary duties here. They discuss putting this film together, capturing comedy on the fly and what it was like working with a cast of such funny people. Predictably, the comedy on this commentary track feels a bit stilted. I say that because funny people are never more unfunny when they are put on the spot like they are here. This audio track isn't bad it just seems like Shiraki and Dratch don't know what to do with themselves, and that seems to be the biggest comedic crime of all.

Additional Scenes

Gag Reel

As you can imagine a movie like this has its fair share of gags. When you put Amy Poehler, Parker Posey, Will Arnett, Rachel Dratch and others together for a film like this, you would be hard pressed to find moments that might not be able to make the gag reel. In fact, I am willing to bet that they creators of this DVD could've probably cut together a whole other movie based on these excised scenes.

Video

1080p High Definition - 16x9 - 1.85:1 - The Special Features are in 480i and 480p Standard Definition. This film looked good but I was scratching my head a bit trying to decide why this film is on Blu-ray. Shiraki and Director of Photography Frank G. DeMarco haven't really gone out of there way to do anything that would merit such a release. The images are crisp but they there really isn't anything overly cinematic about this film. While I didn't notice any moments of pixilation or where things looked overly baked, all in all I think a simple Standard Release for this title would have been fine.

Audio

Dolby Digital: English and French 5.1. Subtitled in English, French and Spanish. The Special Features are in stereo and certain Special Features are subtitled in English. The audio on this release was good but, like the picture, nothing was that amazing about it. Since this film is filled with quick dialogue, most of which contains jokes, there needs to a lot of cleanliness to the audio. I give this release high marks for how rich it makes the audio, even if the sound design doesn't really need to be this high tech.

Package

The heads of Poehler, Posey and Dratch are the only things we can see as the rest of their bodies are buried in sand on this front cover. Behind them are babes and bodies that one can only get if they live at 24 Hour Fitness or take steroids. The back cover gives users 5 images from this film, a technical specs listing, a description of what this movie is about, a Special Features listing and a cast list. All in all there isn't anything that amazing about this packaging but it is decent for what it is.

Final Word

Aside from the overt, well worn idea that this movie postulates: loving yourself for who you are, Spring Breakdown ally an entertaining movie. It is rich with solid comedy and I never felt like any of the actresses were simply going off the idea that they are funny so that automatically makes them funny. With talent like Poehler, Posey and Dratch we aren't getting the comic stylings of say Sandra Bullock or Reese Witherspoon. These comediennes are working at a different level and thus the comedy they do is different. It's much quicker, cerebral and ultimately more entertaining than a lot of today's better known funny women.

While not the greatest film I have ever seen Spring Breakdown deserves a watch.