The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown! [Blu-Ray]
Director(s): Spike Brandt, Tony Cervone
Cast: John Cena, Grey Griffin, Kevin Michael Richardson
Release Date: Own it on Blu-Ray Combo, DVD & Digital HD March 10th
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 7/10
Disc Rating: 8.5/10
Synopsis:
When Fred loses his family’s vacation money, he hatches one of his hair brained plans to get it back. It’s a sports entertainment spectacle that involves throwing his best bud, Barney into the wrestling ring with the likes of John Cenastone (John Cena), Rey Mysteriopal (Rey Mysterio) and even The Undertaker, with Fred himself as event promoter! The crowds roar, the “clams” are pouring in from ticket sales and even Mr. McMagma (Vince McMahon) is taking notice of all the hoopla. Including all-star appearances from The Boulder Twins (Brie and Nikki Bella) Marble Henry (Mark Henry) and Daniel Bry-Rock (Daniel Bryan), it’s time to get the whole family together for hard-hitting, side-splitting laughs from the most epic event in all of prehistory!
Get ready for fun and laughter the whole family will enjoy in this new animated film that combines the worlds of The Flintstones and WWE in a fun and suitably goofy manner. When Fred loses the vacation money set aside specifically for their family vacation, he quickly works up another one of his hair-brained schemes to get it back, this time by creating ringed wrestling matches with the toughest folks in all of Bedrock fighting it out for a paying crowd, including fellow quarry worker Jon Cenastone (voiced by Jon Cena naturally) and more, and of course dragging his trusty pal Barney along for the ride as always.
For two worlds that you wouldn’t think would be able to collide believably within each other, ‘The Flintstones and WWE: Stone Age Smackdown’ does an impressive job of bringing the WWE universe into the Stone Age town of Bedrock and surprisingly also making it perfectly Flintstone-compatible. It takes numerous well known WWE stars and revamps their names slightly and fits their characters into the world of Fred and the rest, including voice work by WWE’s Jon Cena playing a character named Jon Cenastone (as mentioned above), along with Rey Mysterio as Rey Mysteriopal, C.M. Punk as CM Punkrock, Vince McMahon as a sushi vendor named Vince McMagma, among others, all of which while being quite silly, are also incredibly fitting.
‘The Flintstones And WWE: Stone Age Smackdown!’ delivers a fun time and it’s great seeing Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty and the rest all back in a new original animated film (technically a film although it only runs 52 minutes in length). For those of you (such as me) that are huge fans of The Flintstones but not crazy about the world of wrestling and WWE, you should still very much enjoy this fun little movie and it’s also quite refreshing to see the references and nods to WWE often poke fun at themselves which shows just how much they enjoy this kind of collaboration and are willing to go all in. This is a laugh filled fun time that is perfect for children of all ages and would be an excellent selection for a family movie night or just a solo watch for the fellow cartoon fans out there.
VIDEO:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty fantastic for the most part; it is rich, bright and amplifies the colors and animation perfectly down to each line. There are a few mild banding issues present although they are minimal and rarely noticeable, far less so than is commonly found on the DC Animated Titles for instance. As a whole this is a pretty impressive high definition video presentation, especially considering the minimal bitrate utilized and it should please both the casual viewers and most fans.
AUDIO:
The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless soundtrack contributes notably to the overall feel of the world of Bedrock and it immerses the viewer in that world, filling all of the available soundtracks with music in addition to common background noise such as crowd chatter, along with a number of other moments properly fitting in which the surrounding channels takes full advantage, all the while never causing any dialogue occurring simultaneously to become distorted or inaudible in any way. Overall, this is a more than sufficient 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack that is more than capable of the job it’s presented here and it delivers admirably.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown’ includes a couple of fun bonus features. Included on the Blu-Ray release is a couple of short Behind the Scenes Featurette’s that feature interviews/comments with those involved in production and members of the WWE involved. The two included Featurette’s are: ‘The Superstars of Fred Flintstone Entertainment (FFE)’ which runs just under 10 minutes in length, and ‘How To Be a Stone Age Superstar’ which runs just shy of 5 minutes in length. Also included are two bonus cartoons: Full length ‘The Flintstones’ episodes ‘The Engagement Ring’ and ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’.
*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: 8.5/10
Own ‘The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown’ on Blu-Ray Combo, DVD & Digital HD March 10th from WWE Studios & Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
Pre-Order (Purchase) your copy of the Blu-Ray Combo Pack on Amazon at a discounted price by clicking here!