Blu-ray Review: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Release Date: October 13th, 2009
Running Time: 105 minutes

The Film

Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas is synonymous with the holidays, even more so than my other favorite, A Christmas Story. The cartoon’s visuals and story are engrained in my head. Gorgeous animation, gripping narration, and the magic of Christmas translated to screen all make this one of, if not the, best Christmas tales out there. The Ron Howard live-action film adaptation does succeed from a makeup and design perspective, but it fails to recreate the classic nature and wonderment of the original animated film.

If you have ever seen the animated film then the basic plot will be very familiar. In the land of Whoville the Whos love Christmas; it is their life. Only one being in the land, the Grinch (Jim Carrey) hates Christmas. The green, hairy ghoul lives in a cave on Mt. Crumpit with his dog, Max. As a child the Grinch used to love Christmas and had a crush on Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski). He had to compete for her love against Augustus Maywho (Jeffrey Tambor), who would eventually become Mayor of Whoville. Fearing she would shy from his hairy appearance, the Grinch attempted to shave, but just ended up cutting himself only to be mocked by his whole class, even the teacher! Thus the Grinch’s hatred for Christmas was born.

Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen) is a unique Who in that she dislikes the commercialism of Christmas and feels that the true spirit of the holiday has been lost. She opens up to the Grinch and even gets him to come to the Whoville Christmas parties only to have Mayor Maywho embarrass the Grinch again. Further hating the holiday, the Grinch vows to ruin the Who’s Christmas.

The Grinch’s plan is insidious. On Christmas Eve he dresses up as Santa Claus, creates a sleigh, and puts one horn on Max to make him a reindeer. He then proceeds to go from house to house, stealing all things Christmas. His mission complete, he drags the presents and decorations back to Mt. Crumpit. With no gifts, the Whos will have to remember the true meaning of Christmas, and just maybe Cindy Lou can find the goodness in the Grinch’s heart.

I can’t provide a truly objective opinion about How the Grinch Stole Christmas because the animated classic holds such a special place in my heart. First and foremost, Jim Carrey just didn’t feel like the Grinch. He gives a bombastic, over-the-top performance that is wholly Carrey, but that’s never how I envisioned the Grinch. In the animated version he was a slinky, calculated villain—not a series on non-stop physical gags. Simply put, the way Carrey plays the role just doesn’t fit with the tone of the original material. Likewise, the Whos don’t feel authentic either. Outside of Cindy Lou they seem to lack the innocence, love, and sense of joyous community that I felt from the animated version.

Since the original was a half-hour program, a lot of new content needed to be added to make the story a feature length film. Unfortunately I feel like nothing good is brought to the table with these scenes. Adding another villain, a love triangle, and the Grinch’s origin story are all admirable attempts at enhancing the plot, but I felt that these additions were made at the cost of the core spirit of the story. This is a film that is wholly for children, though it would be a shame if they adopt this version as their preference. In my humble opinion I just feel like the live-action film is a bloated, lengthy affair that loses the magic in favor for basic laughs and physical gags.

The Disc

The video is presented in a 1.85:1 1080p High Definition transfer that happens to be one of the poorest Blu-ray efforts I have reviewed, especially for what should have been a vibrant, sharp experience. Colors, and in fact the whole image, appear muted. Black levels aren’t deep and lose a lot of detail in the shadows. Many shots are softer than others, but even the best ones lack the immense clarity HD is known for. With little depth to the image, the detail is only marginally better than standard definition. Print damage and video noise don’t help anything, but at least compression problems are kept under control. In short this is a murky, dull image that is barely an upgrade from the DVD.

The audio is offered in an English DTS HD 5.1 master lossless audio mix as well as Spanish/French DTS 5.1 Surround Sound and English 2.0 Descriptive Video for the visually impaired. English, French, and Spanish subtitles are available. Dialogue is crisp and well placed in the sound stage. The dynamic range is solid and finds some good bass thumps when necessary. Rear speaker ambience, however, is unreliable and the attempts to recreate believable acoustics aren’t as immersive as they could be. The action sequences do feature some nice panning effects, but everything else is underwhelming. The clean, detailed sound effects are more than DVD can offer, but like the video it hardly pushes the capabilities of the format.

The Extras

The special features are slim and none of them take advantage of the Blu-ray innovations.

Commentary is offered by Ron Howard though I found the track to be particularly weak. Howard falls victim to gaps between his comments and never seems to have passion behind his words.

“Spotlight on Location” is a worthless 7-minute promotional featurette with cast/crew interviews.

“Makeup Application and Design” is a 7-minute piece on the prosthetics and makeup of the actors and also touches upon scrapped older designs.

“Set Decoration” is a 5-minute piece on exactly that—the sets.

“Visual Effects” runs 11 minutes and covers the marriage of CGI and practical effects found in the film. Comparison shots with the effects in various stages of completion help emphasize the information.

“Who School” is a 6-minute featurette on the Whos and creating their world.

9 minutes of Deleted Scenes are offered along with 3 minutes of Outtakes. All of it is pure fluff, though the outtakes may amuse young children.

The Theatrical Trailer is offered as well as Faith Hill’s Music Video “Where are You Christmas?”

A bonus DVD of the film is included as well.

Lastly, the disc is D-Box enabled and has BD-Live functionality through My Scenes Bookmarking.

Final Thoughts

Say what you will about the film, but How the Grinch Stole Christmas is definitely a poor excuse for a Blu-ray release that offers almost no incentive to upgrade your DVD. My advice is to buy the classic animated title.