Girls Just Want to Have Fun Blu-ray Review

  • Aspect Ratio: 1:85:1
  • Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
  • Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
  • Audio Codec: English PCM Stereo
  • Subtitles: None
  • Region: A (Region-Locked)
  • Rating: PG
  • Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
  • Run Time: 87 Mins.
  • Studio: Image Home Entertainment
  • Blu-ray Release Date: April 3rd, 2012
  • List Price: $17.97

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Purchase Girls Just Want to Have Fun on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:1.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:2/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:2.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0.5/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

The Film

[Rating:2/5]

Girls Just Want to Have Fun tells the story of Janey (Sarah Jessica Parker), the shy good girl and Lynne (Helen Hunt), the cool rock chick. Janey is the new girl at school, unfamiliar with anyone and the happenings of the town. Lynne is the popular person who seems to know everyone and someone who is just loved by all. Befriending Janey because that’s what girls do (right?), Lynne schemes to get Janey onto the biggest after-school dance show, filled with fun, dancing, breaking the rules and, most importantly, boys! The film itself is your basic run-of-the-mill 80’s comedy that has only one real shining part, that being the acting of Helen Hunt.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun is about as basic an 80’s comedy as you can get. The story plays off as some kind of Saved by the Bell episode in that everything is always conveniently wrapped up without any real sense of drama. The acting (outside of Helen Hunt) is boring. The dialogue, oh my the dialogue is horrendous. Yes, we can blame writer Amy Spies (who only went on to write for Melrose Place, another dreadful, mundane dialogue show), but I say the fault lies more with Director Alan Metter. He just doesn’t know how to direct. The scenes never really flowed with any sense of cohesion between sequences. Everything almost felt very rushed. Granted the budget was quiet low, but that shouldn’t really mean anything. Perhaps I’m reading too far into this, but in all reality Fun,outside of Hunt’s fun, cheerful acting (I always find it interesting to see great actors early in their respective careers) is boring, bland and just something that isn’t entertaining at all.

Video Quality

[Rating:2/5]

The 1:85:1, AVC MPEG-4 encoded, transfer features a very dull, lifeless transfer. The film’s color palette, while initially trying to be vibrant with its fun theme, has the type of colors that don’t really help to bring any sense of life to this transfer. Normally, colors like reds, blue, yellows, etc would add something. Such isn’t the case here, as the colors are bland lacking any real punch or detail to them. Detail, as noted, is lackluster. Sharpness and clarity are some of the worse I’ve seen out of a catalog title. The film’s print is in relatively good condition as scratches, noise and grain levels are kept in check. Just there isn’t a real sense of ‘high definition’ here. Nothing really stands out. I do know the film was shot with a relatively low budget, but the Blu-ray counterpart just doesn’t add up to anything of real merit.

Audio Quality

[Rating:2.5/5]

The film’s provided PCM Stereo is slightly better than the accompanying video. Dialogue, while it might be a bit cheesy, is well reproduced with no instance of drop out. Outside of the dialogue, there really isn’t much else going on here to mention. Surrounds are rarely active, only occasionally rearing their heads during a few of the film’s musical moments. LFE is absent and any sense of atmosphere is all but gone. Truly, this isn’t a mix anyone can really expect to be dynamic or anything great. More it just suits the film at hand.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:0.5/5]

The included supplements are presented in SD:

  • Trailer – 2 trailers (1:33 and 1:26) are shown.

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:1.5/5]

Having been born in the year this film was released, I’m not really the target audience for this film. With that said, the movie does have a few funny moments, but I just couldn’t connect with anything. Perhaps because I know of better work from Hunt and Parker (well, more Hunt). I do suppose fans of the film will want to grab this on Blu-ray, but everyone else should just skip this.

Additional Screen Captures

[amazon-product]B006U49SIA[/amazon-product]

Purchase Girls Just Want to Have Fun on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:1.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:2/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:2/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:2.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:0.5/5]

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