Warner Bros.' new Blu-ray of The Hangover is a relatively satisfying experience. It's one of the only really original, non-franchise (yet) studio releases of the year, and it remains one of the most memorable general audience pictures of the year. For five months, the girls who work in my apartment office have been asking me when "they" are sending The Hangover on DVD for me to review.
Tons of people will be buying this movie on one format or another. Only a few of the extras are really worth spending time with. I'll probably revisit the movie from time to time, but none of the supplements cry to be re-watched. There isn't a mountain of supplements to be devoured, but there are a couple of things that are worth your time here.
To get it out of the way, the 8-minutes-longer "Unrated Cut" advertised on the box amounts to a couple of extended sequences and a new super-brief scene toward the end, but it's nothing racy or newly-revelatory. You get a couple more minutes with the tiger (when the guys take it in the elevator), and a little more Jeffrey Tambor. It's more of a "slightly longer, not as snappy" cut than an "Unrated" one. I'll edit this when I peg what they added in the opening ten minutes.
The Picture in Picture commentary with director Todd Phillips and stars Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, and Zach Galifianakis is really laid back. They touch on an interesting tidbit here and there, and seem as super-psyched (sarcasm intended) to be doing the video commentary as the Observe and Report folks were. The movie had been re-cut since the last time any of the actors had seen it, so they spend a lot of time exclaiming "oh, you added that back in, cool". At one point, Galifianakis relates how he met and was asked by Kanye West to be in one of the superstar's videos. My friend Luke will love the chatter about the baby's "Dutch Rudder" and how Phillips and Galifianakis negotiated it past the parents. I learned that term from Zack & Miri, by the way.
The part that I rewound three times was when they bleep the word "dick" when Phillips says "...make you suck my dick" in the commentary to Galifianakis. That makes this a contender for the most ironic "Unrated cut" release of the year. Thank god that all the little children watching The Hangover on Blu-ray won't hear the director joke about the extra double gay thing he'll "make" one of the actors do to him. It's not the kind of thing that anyone should get up in arms about, but it's worth noting as an outstanding and hilarious moment in the history of censorship.
The two extras worth watching right off the bat are the Gag Reel [8:16] and The Madness of Ken Jeong [7:56], which shows off some really unhinged alternate riffs he did as "Mr. Chow". The one Map of Destruction featurette to look at is the "Mike Tyson's House" one, in which the title of this article is uttered. Also in the mix are a 30-second mashup of the various action bits, the "Three Best Friends" song and the Dan Band performance of "Fame", none of which particularly interested me. Trust me and do not raise your expectations whatsoever for the "100 NEW Photos from the Missing Camera" advertised on the box. They've put some featurettes online-only through the WB BD-Live portal. They include a cursing mash-up and the Tyson Sings teaser. The PiP commentary and the BD-Live stuff is only on the Blu-ray.
A Digital Copy is thrown on the Blu-ray, which is currently $15.99 on Amazon, $4 less than the 2-disc DVD. New release Blu-rays are finally hitting DVD-like first week price points! The Blu, DVD, Digital Download, and On Demand versions of The Hangover go live this coming Tuesday, 12.15.