Just Go With It (Blu-ray) Official AVSForum Review

( Max score: 100 )

84

Film Synopsis:

Danny Maccabee (Adam Sandler) meets the girl of his dreams (Brooklyn Decker) but has to enlist his loyal assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to pretend to be his soon-to-be ex-wife in order to cover up a careless lie. When more lies backfire, Katherine's kids become involved, and everyone heads off to Hawaii for a ridiculous, out-of-control weekend that tests the limits of how far we'll go for love.

My Take:

Jennifer Aniston has become readily identified with the romantic comedy genre and seeing her presence in a film seems to elicit the same typical Jennifer Aniston movie reaction. Add Adam Sandler to the mix and the eye rolling continues. I think that he has lost whatever edge he had when it came to comedies and romantic comedies are even further removed. She still has appeal and needs to find a project/film that will help resurrect her flat lined career. This film unfortunately isn't it. If you have seen the trailer watching the film offers no real surprises (other than perhaps the presence of Nicole Kidman). The inane and predicable storyline gets worse as the movie goes on. It finally descends into a feeble and clichéd ending that can't help but seem awkward in the hands of Sandler who offers little as a romantic lead. I will admit that that are a few bright spots that are worthy of note. Aniston and Sandler do work well together and their off screen friendship positively translates to their onscreen chemistry. Aniston is just plain fun to watch as an actor and her sex appeal makes it easy. Her bikini scene at the water fall and later the belly dancing duet with Nicole Kidman make for worthwhile bookmarks. Nicole Kidman has great comedic timing and looks like she had some fun in the process. Lastly, young Brailee Madison is the film's top scene stealer and makes the most out of each opportunity to do so. Nick Swardson is just plain annoying and has way too much screen time. Newcomer and international supermodel Brooklyn Decker is nice to look at but contributes little otherwise. At 116 minutes this movie runs nearly a half an hour too long. Just go with it is an ineffectual romantic comedy that goes for cheap laughs via a conventional and nonsensical plot that never gets off of the ground. Less discerning genre fans might be taken in by its fleeting moments of cuteness and surface level humor but it left me empty by the time the credits rolled.

Parental Guide:

The rating is for frequent crude and sexual content, partial nudity, brief drug references and language.

Audio: 80

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Video: 88

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Just go with it comes to Blu-ray Disc from Sony featuring 1080p AVC encoded video that has an average bitrate of 23 Mbps and lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound that has an average bitrate of 2.5 Mbps.

This is a high quality video presentation that seems a perfect match for the source material. Colors are oversaturated with eye pleasing vibrant quality and alluring, image penetrating depth. Images are resolute, with stable sharpness, crisp detail and appreciable subtle delineation. Certain scenes looked better resolved than others although I suspect this is related to the photography and not the encoding. Contrast was dynamic without being overpowering and blacks were respectable in depth with discernible detail in low lighting and shadows. I didn't see any signs of video related artifacts and thought that in general video quality was excellent. This soundtrack comes with three lossless audio language options and competently delivered the elements present in this recording. Dialogue is well intonated with crystal clarity and good room penetration. The lossless audio presentation delivers an open soundstage across the front with definitive channel separation and good dynamic range. Surround use is limited to spatial cues and venue simulating surround effects. This is noticeable during the restaurant and beach sequences which create a fairly enveloping rear sound field. There isn't any sub bass frequencies contained in the mix however the subwoofer is used to provide low bass emphasis that extends the low range content associated with the soundtrack and the results are quite good.

Bonus Features:

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• Commentary with Adam Sandler, Nick Swardson and the filmmakers
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• Commentary with director Dennis Dugan
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• (HD) Laughter is contagious - 4 minute outtake reel
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• (HD) 16 deleted scenes
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• (HD) Adon: Living plastic - 2 minute feature with Kevin Nealon going on location while in make-up
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• (HD) Along came a prop guy - a series of gags involving the crew
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• (HD) Deckers got gas - An attempted practical joke gone bad
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• (HD) Dolph: Not the one from Rocky IV - 6 minute gag reel with Nick Swardon
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• (HD) Kevin Nealon: The plastic man - 5 minute make-up featurette
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• (HD) Whats a Dugan? - 5 minutes featuring the cast/crews perspective on director Dennis Dugan
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• (HD) Look who else is in the movie - 2 minute feature
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• (HD) Sneaky Kiki & Bart the water fart - 1 minute feature
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• (HD) The perfect couple Adam & Jen - 5 minute featurette
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• (HD) The not so perfect couple - 4 minute featurette
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• (HD) Deckers first role - 4 minute featurette
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• (HD) Shooting Hawaii - 5 minute featurette
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• (HD) Grand Wailea Promo - 7 minutes on the resort featured in the film
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• BD-Live enabled

Final Thoughts:

Typical of the fast food style romcoms being released of late Just go with it is an ineffectual romantic comedy that goes for cheap laughs via a conventional and nonsensical plot that never gets off of the ground. Its few entertaining moments are fleeting and its 116 runtime only further enhances its weaknesses. It makes it debut on Blu-ray Disc from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment featuring excellent high definition audio/video quality and a rather bland supplemental offering that is more fluff than substance. If you're curious you can give this a rent but I would recommend that you wait for it to come to cable TV.