Blue Streak

During a job gone wrong, the burglar Miles Logan (Martin Lawrence) hides a stolen diamond in a ventilation duct at a construction site just before he is caught by the police. After spending two years in jail he returns to the site only to discover that the building now houses a police station and he has to get creative to gain access to his hidden loot. After a failed attempt to gain access disguised as a pizza delivery guy, he learns that the floor where he hid the diamond is now home to the robbery department. He realize that the only way to get access is to pose as a police detective so he acquire some fake papers and join the department as a newly transferred officer. Unfortunately it is not as easy as that to get the diamond and he is soon partnered with the newly appointed and slightly naive detective Carlson (Luke Wilson) and put on several cases.

Meanwhile Deacon (Peter Greene), one of Logan's partners from the burglary, is trying to track him down to get the diamond. Deacon tried to kill Logan during the burglary to get it and now that he discovers that Logan poses as a cop, he realizes that the diamond must be hidden at the station and decides to let Logan get the diamond and then take it from him.

All this of course leads to much hilarity and funny situations combined with a nice amount of action. I was quite entertained by the movie and although I am not a huge fan of Martin Lawrence, I still found Blue Streak to be fairly funny at times. Lawrence tends to go a bit overboard occasionally, especially the part where he is disguised as a pizza delivery guy was too much for me, but generally he delivered a good performance and was the source of most laughs during the movie. Otherwise the cast performed as could be expected. This is not a movie with room for great acting, but the actors did an adequate job.

The plot of the movie was not exactly groundbreaking or surprising - if you want those qualities you should look elsewhere, but as a comedy/action movie it delivered what it should. If you like Martin Lawrence's other movies you should definitely check it out, but if you cannot stand the guy, you should probably stay away from this.

The movie is presented in 1080p with AVC encoding at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is a good transfer although the picture is marred by a few problems which prevent it from being great. There is very good detail in the picture, with nice textures and excellent clarity for the most part. Close-ups reveal all the pores and birthmarks in the actors' skin and wide shots give fine views of down-town L.A. with good depth and detail. The colours are good, although a bit muted and the contrast is adequate. Blacks are deep, but tend to lose some detail and are occasionally subject to some excessive noise. There are also the occasional artefacts, but not enough to be distracting.

DNR is not evident in the picture, but edge enhancement has been regularly used and detracts somewhat from the visual experience.

Overall the video looks okay for a movie like this. It is by no means perfect, but it is a good step-up from the DVD version.

The English audio track on this release is delivered in lossless 5.1 channels TrueHD. For the most part the audio is very front heavy, but the subwoofer and surround speakers get some occasional work, particularly by the musical score and during action scenes. Nevertheless it is not a particularly immersive soundfield and the directional sounds seem to be a little off sometimes. The dialogue is crisp and clear even during action scenes and I never had problems hearing what was being said.

I did not notice any errors or distortions in the audio, but it is by no means a very exciting track. It never pushed my sound system very far and seemed a little underwhelming.

All the extras on this Blu-ray are presented in 480p/MPEG-2 with 2.0 Dolby Digital audio, except for the trailers which are 1080p.

Setting up for the Score - (22:09 minutes) Behind-the-scenes featurette with actors and crew interviews. This is the average featurette about the making of the movie with a look at the casting and filming of Blue Streak.
HBO First Look: Inside and Undercover - (23:02 minutes) Another behind-the-scenes look at the movie and the music video for Jay-Z's "Girl's Best Friend". This featurette has a few clips in common with the first one and is mostly the usual fare of the actors and crew praising each other.
Music Videos - Jay-Z’s "Girl's Best Friend," Tyrese's "Criminal Mind," and So Plush's "Damn."
Trailers - Men in Black, Hancock, Vantage Point, and 21.

This selection of extras is pretty slim and it does not help that they are all in standard definition. It would have been nice with an audio commentary included and perhaps a few deleted scenes.

Blue Streak is not the greatest comedy action movie on the market, but for me it delivered just about what I expected it to - some funny gags and some entertaining action. The experience hinges on how much of a Martin Lawrence fan you are, as he is the focal point of the movie. If you are a huge fan you will probably find this to be as good fun as some of his other movies, but if you are not, the movie does not have very much else to offer. The video and audio on this release are of adequate quality, although I would have liked a little more depth in the audio, but the extras are quite disappointing. During the two featurettes some footage from an unused bowling alley scene is shown and it would have been nice if it had been included as deleted scenes.