Plot: What’s it about?
After the death of their grandfather, Jan Wolfhouse (Paul Soter) and his brother Todd (Erik Stolhanske) have to return his remains to the family resting place. That means traveling to Germany during the nation’s famous beer celebration, which has the brothers overjoyed. Once there however, they find themselves taken to an underground beer drinking contest known as Beerfest. In this competition, countries send their most hardcore drinkers to defend the honor of an entire nation, in various drinking games. Jan and Todd meet their German relatives, but the reception is ice cold, since their grandfather stole a beer recipe and their grandmother was a whore, not to mention the brothers are American. When insulted, they challenge the Germans to a drinking contest, but are crushed and sent home in shame. But they decide not to take the abuse without a fight, so they draft a squad of the best drinkers they know, to win next year’s Beerfest. An entire year of training lies ahead of them, but can these five beer buddies manage to unlock the secrets of the sport? The Germans will be almost impossible to beat, but with nothing to lose, can the American team prevail?
The boys from Broken Lizard are back, this time with an adventure to an underground beer drinking contest, a premise which seemed to have a lot of potential. While Club Dread wasn’t as good as Super Troopers, I held out hope for Beerfest, especially since the preview was so frenetic and over the top. As it turns out, the preview didn’t offer us a valid sneak peek, since Beerfest is by no means frenetic or over the top. In fact, even though it runs almost two hours in length, only the final twenty minutes or so warrant a look. As it happens, the preview took a lot of footage from the actual Beerfest competitions, but sadly, those sequences are brief in the movie itself, second to dull exposition and failed comedy. I expected a brisk, rapid fire movie here, but instead we have a rather slow pace lined with infrequent laughs. The beer competitions bookend the movie and those scenes work well, but not well enough to endure the rest of the flick. Beerfest is not devoid of humor, but so much fails and the movie drags at times, so it isn’t a fun experience. If the movie was fifteen minutes shorter and focused more on the beer contest, it would have been much more effective. But a few bare breasts and some mediocre humor isn’t enough, so I am left to deny a recommendation of Beerfest. I wanted to like this movie, but it just isn’t good, so if you must see it, a rental will be sufficient.
Video: How does it look?
Beerfest is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. As this is a new release from Warner, of course it looks terrific and then some. The print is almost pristine, so the visuals have a clean, crisp, and well detailed appearance. In fact, detail is so good at times, the image takes on a much deeper texture, quite impressive work indeed. The movie’s vivid color scheme bounds off the screen, with rich and vibrant hues that never drift into errors. I found contrast to be stark and consistent also, with no problems in the least to mention. All in all, another excellent visual effort from the folks at Warner.
Audio: How does it sound?
A Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is used here, but the material doesn’t ask much of it beyond the basics. The pop driven music comes through well, with a lot of life and presence that spices up the experience a lot. But the music sometimes overpowers the other elements, though never to an extreme degree, so no worries there. The rest of the elements sound more than solid, but never rise above passable levels. A handful or so scenes have some added presence, but on the whole, the mix is basic and reserved. The material doesn’t need explosive audio however, so the experience is still fine and more than acceptable. The dialogue is crisp and clean throughout, with no signs of trouble in the slightest. This disc also includes subtitles in English, Spanish, and French, should you need those.
Supplements: What are the extras?
As usual for the Broken Lizard troupe, they offer two audio commentary tracks, with the members split across both sessions. The movie might be dull, but at least the troupe manages to keep our attention in these tracks, so that is a plus. The group is actually more funny in these sessions, with stories from the production and memories of their own drunken moments. Also better than the movie are the deleted scenes, about half an hour of unused footage that has some good stuff. I saw a few scenes that were worthy of inclusion in the movie and given some of the tripe that made the final cut, I am unsure why it wasn’t used. This disc also includes two brief featurettes, as well as the film’s theatrical trailer.
