Snatched 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review
After the success of TRAINWRECK, it made sense that Amy Schumer would get another starring role in her own comedy and who better to team her up with than the ultimate fish out of water comedienne Goldie Hawn? The pairing seemed perfect, especially since Goldie’s fans haven’t seen her on the big screen in over 15 years. But someone forgot to mention that Amy Schumer’s comedy walks a very, very fine line between funny and annoyingly obnoxious and one wrong turn and audiences want to scream obscenities at her rather than laugh at her. There’s only so much an audience can stand of watching someone they dislike try to be funny and SNATCHED feels like it’s really trying to find that mark.
Emily (Schumer) just got dumped by her boyfriend and fired from her job, right before she takes off for a vacation to Ecuador. She deserved to be fired and probably should have been dumped long before she was, so there’s no feeling sorry for Emily. Desperate to find someone to go with her, she begs all of her friends and gets shot down, eventually settling on taking her mom, Linda (Hawn). Linda has turned into a recluse, but reluctantly agrees to accompany Emily, only to be annoyed by her the entire time, giving her something in common with the audience. Emily gets drunk and parties and eventually meets up with the charming James (Tom Bateman). But James isn’t who he pretends to be and while taking Emily and Linda on a tour of Ecuador, a van crashes into them and Emily and Linda get kidnapped by some mean South American gangsters.
Maybe there was a time when being kidnapped could have been funny, but in a day and age where sex trafficking is so prevalent and people are scared of getting beheaded on their vacations to Mexico, it’s just not that amusing. SNATCHED figures this out early on in the process as the actual kidnapping and most of their running feels more like something out of a horror-adventure movie than a comedy. In fact, the only real comedy in the film rests solely on the shoulders of Schumer, but her character is so obnoxious and annoying that her “funny” moments are more irritating than anything. Goldie Hawn jumps right back into characters she made famous in the 80’s and early 90’s, but her only opportunities come in the form of reactions to something that happened or something Schumer said or did. The biggest laugh in the film actually came from Christopher Meloni as their impromptu guide doing a J. Peterman impersonation, but he barely makes more than an extended cameo.
I like various skits in ‘Inside Amy Scumer’ and TRAINWRECK was an okay film, but the thing about Amy Schumer is that she’s not actually a funny person. She has a schtick that really works for her, but like many comedians before her (male and female), she struggles when she gets outside that schtick. SNATCHED asked too much from her and revealed that maybe she’s not ready to deviate from the self-deprecating, slightly gross humor that made her famous.
4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: The bright settings and rich backgrounds look great on 4K, but to be fair, they also looked great on the Blu-ray. The 4K offers a marginal upgrade, more noticeable in fabrics and skin texture during closeups. There are a couple of scenes that look a little fake due to the increased resolution, but I doubt much of the budget was given to special effects. Overall, this is a nice looking transfer, but not a substantial upgrade over the Blu-ray.
Audio: The DTS track is the same one found on the Blu-ray.
This title was reviewed using a Samsung UBD-K8500 with a Sony XBR75X850C TV.
The 4K UHD does not contain any exclusive features, but it does include a Blu-ray of the film, which includes the following special features:
Commentary with Jonathan Levine: Levine gives a nice commentary track, making up for the lack of a detailed making-of featurette.
Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes (26:51): I lumped all of these together because they all kind of run together. There are several scenes included, none of which make much of a difference.
Gag Reel
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