No
Holds Barred (1989/Image
Blu-ray)/Scooby Doo!:
WrestleMania Mystery
(2014/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD)/WWE
50 (2013/Hardcover/DK
Books)
Picture:
C+/B- & C/X Sound: B-/B- & C+/X Extras: D/C-/X
Main Programs: D/C- Book: B-
World
Wrestling Entertainment is continuing to celebrate it half-century
mark and use it to expand into new markets, even if if seems overly
cynical at times.
We
start with the awful, forgotten Hulk Hogan film No
Holds Barred
(1989), misdirected by Thomas J. Wright about Hogan as a clone of
Hogan forced by an evil
TV executive (hmmm) to fight a wrestler from a new rival to his
league because he would not defect to that league. This makes Slim
Jim commercials look like abstract art as this mess waddles on for 94
sickening minutes and from starting so bad, just gets worse and worse
and worse and worse. There is no real acting or story to speak of
and joined the list of horrid films that make Blu-ray before
thousands of more important classics and films with a brain.
Extras
sadly include (surprise?) two wrestling matches.
Even
more ironic is Scooby
Doo!: WrestleMania Mystery
(2014) which brings together two opposite forces from the old days.
Warner Bros. now own Scooby, but back in 1989, it was owner (soon to
be) Ted Turner
who bought Hanna-Barbera and had the one big rival league to what was
the WWF. This is the worst Scooby project since the pathetic
live-action films too soon ago, but this just kisses and makes up for
the rivalry with Mr. Turner out of the picture. He gets the last
laugh as this is the worst animated Scooby project to date and plays
more like a long, long, long 84 minutes double ad placement and is
the nadir of Scooby animated to date.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices so you cannot escape it, a short, sad Behind
The Scenes featurette and older
Scooby Kids episode on wrestling that was not meant to endorse the
WWF or WWE and is included here as if no other franchise existed
before.
Finally
we get the new WWE
50
(2013) hardback coffee table book, a print companion to the program
of the same name we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12564/The+Armstrong+Lie+(2013/Sony+Blu-ray)/McConk
It
is the best entry on here by default, but if you are not a fan of the
WWE, you will find this a heavy bore. Fans might enjoy it, but I
even found the text here tedious and no match for the video version.
A trading card is actually included, but it has no real extras.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer can on Holds
has a print with softness that shows the age of the materials used,
which somehow survived. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Scooby is better, but despite some good
color, I was surprised how inconsistent the transfer was and the
anamorphically enhanced DVD version is so soft as to be unwatchable.
Both
releases offer DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, but they
are dead even in being mixed affairs with inconsistent soundfields,
though Holds
was originally theatrical mono, so that says how sad both are and the
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Scooby
DVD is weaker still. SO much for a happy anniversary.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
