VARSITY BLUES - Blu-ray review

After releasing the blockbusters "Gladiator" and "Braveheart" on Blu-ray disc, it seemed inevitable that Paramount would naturally follow them up with the high-definition transfer of..."Varsity Blues."

"Varsity Blues"? One could understand if this were a brand-new movie, but it came out in 1999. One could understand if the movie were a huge box-office smash, but it did only moderately good business. One could understand if the movie were a critical success, but it garnered only so-so reviews. One could understand if the movie starred big-time actors, but aside from Jon Voight, there are only a few recognizable names in the cast. And one could understand the high-def treatment if the movie displayed exceptionally good audiovisual qualities, but, again, it's only average. I dunno.

I have the feeling that this must have been a personal favorite of somebody at the studio. Still, if you're a fan of "Varsity Blues," it's always nice to see and hear it in the best way possible, so who am I to complain?

The movie tells the story of a high school football player, so you know where it's going from the outset. It's not a true-life tale, but it's close enough to most inspirational sports story you've ever seen, with a twist you can see coming. The writer, W. Peter Iliff, sets it in the little town of West Canaan, Texas--Texas being the capital of football mania in the U.S. Remember "The Last Picture Show," where the only thing the town had going for it was its theater, which had long since closed, and the only way to escape was to leave town? The only thing West Canaan seems to have going for it is the high school football team, which has three times been State champs. Football reigns in West Canaan; it's "a way of life," as the main character says. Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing, especially to coach Bud Kilmer (Voight), the tyrannical, hard-ass jerk who's been coaching for thirty years and believes in winning at all cost. Like the rest of the community, as a good, God-fearing man, coach Kilmer encourages his team to pray to win. Football is a religion to these folks.

James Van Der Beek plays the main character, Jonathan "Mox" Moxon, the backup quarterback on the West Canaan team; he's a good kid, a straight-arrow, who strives for something more than short-lived football stardom but whose eventual promotion to starting quarterback almost goes to his head. His girlfriend, Jules Harbor (Amy Smart), is the only character in the picture with a mind of her own and doesn't buy into the football nonsense. Mox's best buddies are the teammates he's known from grade school: Lance Harbor (Paul Walker), the best high school quarterback in the state and, naturally, a blond Adonis; Billy Bob (Ron Lester), a big, dumb, good-hearted lineman; Charles Tweeder (Scott Caan), a smart-mouth, lover-boy wise guy; and Wendell Brown (Eliel Swinton), the only black player on the squad.

There are only four games left in the season, and Mox can't wait for them to end. Then it's forget about football and on to college, where he awaits an academic scholarship to Brown, leaving football and Texas behind. And that's about the size of the movie, where you can guess probably every character's motives and actions in advance, every plot move, and every thematic device.

True to most Hollywood films about teenagers, this one, a joint Paramount-MTV production, uses actors in their mid-to-late twenties to play the teens. We can live with it. The stereotypes, though, may be a different story. Apart from football, the kids do nothing but party, drink, drive fast, and have sex. Most of the adult males are mindless good ol' boys and the women are practically invisible. The fathers relive their own high school football glory days through their sons and even show up at daily practices. The biology instructor who teaches "human reproduction," Miss Davis (Tonie Perensky), is a fox. Seniors fill her biology class, which works as a plot device but makes no sense in terms of real high schools, unless they all failed their freshman or sophomore years.

Director Brian Robbins ("Good Burger," "Norbert," "Meet Dave") tries to make a traditional sports movie and an anti-sports movie at the same time, to juggle comedic teen high jinks with exaggerated melodrama and clichéd raunch. "American Pie" would open the same year a few months earlier and take raunchiness to a whole new level, but "Varsity Blues" didn't have a chance to emulate it, or it probably would have gone further than it does. Still, for a lot of viewers, the movie will be just right, providing a few laughs, a few thrills, and a couple of tender moments in equal measure.

We get the community for whom football is life; the young people who feel trapped and need to escape; the lovers who misconstrue their situation; the cheerleader (Ali Larder) looking for something more to life; the black player feeling under appreciated because of his race; all the things we've already seen in a teenage sports film.

"Varsity Blues" tries hard to be honest and sensitive but often as not comes across as heavy-handed. What do you mean, Does it all come down to the final game? The film doesn't miss a beat.

Video:
While the Paramount video engineers probably do everything they can to bring the movie to disc in the best possible manner, they might have been working with a less-than-perfect product. They use an MPEG-4 AVC transfer and a dual-layer BD50 to reproduce the film's 1.85:1 ratio picture. Sometimes the quality looks fine, sometimes outstanding, and sometimes mediocre, changing from scene to scene. When it's not spot-on, it appears soft, even a little blurry, especially in long and medium shots. Close-ups, however, often look sharp and well detailed. Colors are OK most of the time, although facial tones can be a tad too dark. A natural film grain complements the image texture.

Audio:
The lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack promises more than it delivers, through no fault of its own, I'm sure. Like the picture quality, it is only so-so. There is very little surround activity, not a lot of frequency range, only moderate dynamic impact, and a limited front-channel stereo spread. The movie is dialogue heavy, so that's where the soundtrack shines--in the midrange.

Extras:
Among the extras you'll find the usual items. We begin with an audio commentary, this one with director Brian Robbins and producers Tova Laiter and Mike Tollin, all of whom seem genuinely surprised by the film's continued popularity. Following that, we get four featurettes, all of them in standard definition: "Football is a Way of Life: The Making of Varsity Blues," seventeen minutes of behind-the-scenes material; "Two-A-Days the Ellis Way," seven minutes with the cast on a real football field; "QB Game Analysis," fifteen minutes about real-life Texas football, with comments on the film from a real-life Texas quarterback; and "Billy Bob with No Bacon," four minutes with the film's co-star, Ron Lester, who today is much thinner than he was in the film.

The extras conclude with twenty scene selections; bookmarks; a widescreen theatrical trailer in high def; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
"Varsity Blues" isn't a bad film; it's just one you've seen before. And before that. Remember "Breaking Away"? Better movie. "Varsity Blues" is slick, well made, and well acted, but it takes no chances, adding little to the mystique and allure of high-school football we don't already know. Seems a wasted opportunity.