Drillbit Taylor Extended Survival Edition

Blu-ray Review

Paramount Home Entertainment

Release: July 1, 2008

The Blu-ray format has received some quality films to date, especially in the comedy department. We have seen some great stuff over the past year, and Paramount has now released Drillbit Taylor. Is it good enough to add to your Blu-ray collection?

Produced by Judd Apatow (Superbad) and written by Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Drillbit Taylor had a lot going for it to kick things off, including the inclusion of Owen Wilson as the lead character in the comedy. The story revolved around a group of kids who hire a bodyguard to take care of the bully at school, only to find out that who they end up with is just Drillbit Taylor.

Owen Wilson stars in this film as Drillbit Taylor, who ends up landing a job as a bodyguard for three nerdy high school freshmen. The three high school kids hire Taylor to deal with the school bully.

These high school kids quickly realize though that this man, dressed in army attire, is really not much more than just your typical bum, and may not be able to do much to protect them.

This comedy ahs a tough time finding its own place as it really lacks an identity when you sit down and watch it. You can clearly see the influence films such as Superbad and Knocked Up had on it, as it does have some solid writing with some great one-liners thrown into spawn a few laughs. As an overall story though, it feels far too systematic in in how it delivers it all.

The Blu-ray transfer has been presented in 2.34:1 aspect ratio and is in 1080p/VC-1 video. The Blu-ray video transfer just comes across as too bright and colorful here, as the fleshtones do not come across realistic. Everything, for some reason, seems very saturated in several scenes.

Beyond those complaints though, there is no dust or grain to be found as the transfer itself is clean. The use of colors on the other hand is nothing to be impressed by.

The audio is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and really just focuses on the center channel for some very clear and crisp dialogue. This is a bit of a step back from what we have seen from Paramount in the past with Blu-ray releases, as the surround channels are not used much at all.

Despite the fact that the film did not do well in the box office, Paramount has given it some high-quality extras on the Blu-ray format. All of the extras are presented in full HD as well, a huge bonus.

To start things off, you are presented with a commentary track by Steven Brill, Kristofor Brown, Troy Gentile, Nate Hartley, and David Dorfman. The commentary track is pretty straight-forward, but does provide some quality entertainment as they talk about how they made the film, the characters, etc.

Up next is The Writers Get A Chance To Talk, which allows Seth Rogen and Kristofor Brown to talk about the film in detail, also entertaining and insightful.

This is followed by 19 deleted and extended scenes, which can be enjoyable or boring depending on how much you enjoy the characters. A gag reel and a string of one-liners is included to round it off.

The exclusive survival extras, as they are called, can actually be pretty funny. They include things such as a rap off, as well as an extended version of the film.

For true comedy fans, Drillbit Taylor may be worth a rental on the Blu-ray format, but not much beyond that.

Movie: 6.8

Not the best comedy out there, but fans of Owen Wilson and others will enjoy this as a rental.

Video: 7.0

A strange choice of colors to say the least, very clean beyond that though.

Audio: 7.0

The film doesn’t make much use of the surround channels.

Extras: 7.8

Quality extras that are all in HD, not much for Blu-ray exclusives though.

Final Score: 7.2