The Nut Job (2D) [Blu-Ray]
Director: Peter Lepeniotis
Cast: Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, Liam Neeson (VOICES)
Release Date: Available on 3D & 2D Blu-Ray Combo Pack & DVD April 15, 2014
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 7/10
Disc Rating: 9/10
Plot Summary:
An incorrigibly self-serving exiled squirrel finds himself helping his former park brethren raid a nut store to survive, that is also the front for a human gang’s bank robbery.
‘The Nut Job’ tells the story of a lone squirrel named Surly (Arnett) who along with his friend Buddy the rat make continuous attempts to score enough food to stuff themselves silly for the winter without regard for the fellow animal inhabitants of the park who are incredibly low on their food supply and might not make it through the winter. After being banished into the city for his selfishness, he comes across what just might be the biggest score ever, but unfortunately for him, his old acquaintances have come to the same conclusion. Now they must work together to pull off the ultimate job to save the winter food supply for the park, but can they trust each other and who may be double crossing who?
The characters are fun and memorable with pretty well chosen actors helming the voices. The cast includes Will Arnett in the lead role of Surly the Squirrel, along with Liam Neeson in an appropriately hilarious role of the Raccoon that I have a feeling would not have been nearly as humorous with anyone else portraying the voice. The voice cast also includes the likes of Brendan Fraser, Gabriel Iglesias, Jeff Dunham, Katherine Heigl as well as a number more and they all do pretty capable jobs in their respective roles for the majority.
‘The Nut Job’ is a pretty fun and hilarious adventure that should keep the whole family satisfied. It succeeds in keeping the humor on a level that is suitable for children while still sufficiently entertaining to adults and I’d be surprised to not find the adults laughing along with the kids throughout to at least some degree. It’s definitely worth a watch in my opinion, certainly for those with young ones and even for the adults who just enjoy a fun and quite funny animated good time as well. I definitely enjoyed it quite a bit more than I initially expected to.
VIDEO:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘The Nut Job’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation on this one looks absolutely outstanding. All of the bright colors and attention to detail on each character looks fantastic and every other element of this high definition video presentation looks pretty great as well. From every edge and border, to the fast moving sequences, I couldn’t find any faults within and was quite impressed with just how remarkable this one looked.
AUDIO:
The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack that sounds pretty great and definitely adds another level of fun to the overall experience of the movie. This lossless multichannel soundtrack is consistently throwing noises throughout all five channels and keeping things on a pretty amped up level with a lot of activity, yet always leaving the dialogue (mostly) contained to the center channel perfectly audible. If your family has the option to watch this one with the lossless 5.1 channel soundtrack utilized, I would highly recommend doing so.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The 2D Blu-Ray release of ‘The Nut Job’ includes a number of pretty fun extra goodies. Included on the release are just over five minutes of deleted scenes, Moving Storyboards that include dialog and some coloring, as well as a short featurette titled ‘The Great Nut Heist’ that features Will Arnett discussing the film, the Dance-Off end credits sequence included separate from the film (I’m guessing for easy access?) and 2 surprisingly fun and hilarious animated shorts featuring the Surly the squirrel and Buddy. It should also be noted that all of these special features are Blu-Ray exclusives and not included on the DVD release, except for the 2 animated shorts.
*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.
Film Rating: 7/10
Disc Rating: 9/10
Bring home ‘The Nut Job’ on 3D & 2D Blu-Ray Combo Pack & DVD April 15, 2014 From Universal Studios Home Entertainment.