Best Night Ever is exhibit #152 why Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should not get anywhere near a camera. Although it is technically a step up from their previous attempts at “humor”, this is still a dry piece that hampered even further with the overused and I pray to god is on its way out, found footage style of “filmmaking”.
Best Night Ever
(2014)
Genre(s): “Comedy”
Magnet Releasing | R – 82 min. – $29.98 | April 8, 2014
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MOVIE INFO: Theatrical Release Date: January 31, 2014 (limited) DISC INFO: Audio: English (DTS-HD MA 5.1) |
THE MOVIE – 1.25/5
Plot Outline: Bride-to-be Claire (DESIREE HALL), her sister Leslie (SAMANTHA COLBURN), fun-loving Zoe (EDDIE RITCHARD), and quirky new friend Janet (CRISTA FLANAGAN) set off to Las Vegas for a one-night bachelorette party that turns out to be more than they bargained for. A series of unexpected adventures rips them from the glitz and glamour of the Las Vegas underbelly. Determined to keep their bachelorette party dreams alive, the girls band together and embark on the wildest night in bachelorette party history.
Quick Hit Review: “A raging new comedy from the directors and co-writers of Epic Movie, Date Movie and Meet the Spartans”. If this doesn’t scare you, perhaps adding “in the style of found footage”, that should tell you everything about this dull and dreadfully unfunny film, generically titled Best Night Ever, but is more or less a female version of The Hangover down to character traits and Vegas shenanigans, sans the funny, of course.
So, is this as bad as Friedberg/Seltzer’s previous endeavors? Not quite but it’s still pretty darn bad and is yet another reason why neither one of them should ever write and/or direct a movie especially when you consider Best Night Ever goes away from the spoof genre and even then it’s an utter failure with nary a laugh.
SPECIAL FEATURES – 1.5/5
Deleted Scenes (7:13; HD) – There are scenes that for whatever reason were removed or trimmed, probably mostly for pacing issues.
Interviews (8:30; HD) contain sound bites with actresses Desiree Hall, Samantha Colburn and Crista Flanagan as they discuss the movie and their characters.
AXS TV: A Look at Best Night Ever (2:54; HD) is a short promotional featurette.
Trailer (1:22; HD)
Previews – Journey to the West, Alan Partridge, The Last Days on Mars, Big Bad Wolves
VIDEO – 3.75/5
Best Night Ever flies in ready to party showing up in sharp-ish 1080p high-definition and presented with a 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio. Like most of these types of movies, they rarely look good considering it’s supposed to look amateurish and the same can be said, though parts aren’t too bad and pixilation and artifacts are kept to a minimum. Also, colors appear to be nicely balanced and bright while the nighttime scenes are relatively stark.
AUDIO – 4.5/5
The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track meanwhile comes across quite well, actually. The bulk of the movie is filled primarily with dialogue but the occasional “thrill” scene and even some of the music help round things out and give the rear channels something to do; even the LFE channel comes to life providing some decent depth.
OVERALL – 1.5/5
Overall, Best Night Ever is exhibit #152 why Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should not get anywhere near a camera. Although it is technically a step up from their previous attempts at “humor”, this is still a dry piece that hampered even further with the overused and I pray to god is on its way out, found footage style of “filmmaking”. The Blu-ray from Magnet is thin on bonus material although the video/audio transfers are both satisfactory.
Published: 03/29/2014