“Meeting’s over.”
          “Where did I lose you, Griffin?”
“Everywhere. You lost me everywhere. It’s not… It’s obscene. It’s offensive.”

These lines from the film couldn’t express my sentiments any better. With such an expansive, amazing cast, it’s a wonder how this movie ended up so bad.

Movie 43 is a modern-day Kentucky Fried Movie—it is a loosely-connected collection of (mostly crude) shorts. This blu-ray contains both the theatrical version of the film and an alternate cut—each with its own framing mechanism. The theatrical cut follows down-on-his-luck director Charlie Wessler (Dennis Quaid) who’s trying to pitch his movie to producer Griffin Schraeder (Greg Kinnear) and in the process we see these ideas he has for the film. This at least gives some a somewhat plausible thread weaving through the film, and the framing scenes actually refer back to what happened in the shorts. On the other hand, the alternate cut revolves around three teenagers who, as the result of a prank, are looking for a mysterious banned “Movie 43” on the internet and inadvertently end up causing worldwide destruction. The shorts are the internet clips they come across in their search. This framing story felt so generic—with reactions like “wow” and “that’s gross” instead of actually tying the shorts into the story. The acting was also as atrocious as the framing story itself.

I found that most of the shorts that make up the film were either far too crude or had a decent concept but were just poorly executed, negating any possible humor. A couple of the shorts gave me an occasional smile, but the only one that actually had me laughing out loud was “Homeschooled”. Parents Robert (Liev Schreiber) and Samantha (Naomi Watts) are talking to their new neighbors about how they home school their son Kevin (Jeremy Allen White). They explain how they are trying to give their son the true, complete high school experience at home—which includes things like the other kids making fun of him, missing out on parties, someone stealing his girlfriend, his first kiss and awkward homosexual advances from his buddy. In these cut sequences, we see the parents playing all the roles of the other students—the scene with the mother trying to give her son his first kiss is as disturbing as it is hilarious, and the horrified reactions of the neighbors to these stories are excellent.

Another segment that almost worked for me was “Truth or Dare” in which Emily (Halle Berry) and Donald (Stephen Merchant) decide to play Truth or Dare while on their first match.com date. However, this also ended up getting overly raunchy, crude and offensive.

Those decent segments were few and far between as most of the others pushed beyond the lines of decency. “The Proposition” finds Jason (Chris Pratt) about to propose to Vanessa (Anna Faris), who has her own proposal that he “take a poop on her”. “The Catch” finds Beth (Kate Winslet) on a blind date with Davis (Hugh Jackman), a man who has a pair of testicles on his neck. In “Middleschool Date”, brothers Nathan (Jimmy Bennett) and Mikey (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) freak out when Nathan’s friend Amanda (Chloë Grace Moretz) gets her first period and blood goes everywhere. And “Veronica” finds Neil (Kieran Culkin) and Veronica (Emma Stone) talk explicitly to one another over a supermarket PA.

“Super Hero Speed Dating” is a great example of a fun idea with a great cast (Justin Long, Uma Thurman, Bobby Cannavale, Kristen Bell, John Hodgman, Leslie Bibb) that just felt like a bad Saturday Night Live skit—it didn’t help that Jason Sudeikis was playing Batman. And if the shorts weren’t bad enough, there are also ads thrown into the mix—like one for iBabe—a full-size naked woman that plays your music, a Tampax ad involving a shark, and a PSA for the kids who live inside machines.

The Blu-ray itself looks and sounds great, but contains only one bonus feature—an additional short! For a unique movie like this, there should have been some sort of Making Of featurette or commentary explaining how or why this film came together. I’m surprised we don’t even get a gag reel as there is already some outtake footage that rolls during the film’s credits.

Another issue I have with this Blu-ray release is that there isn’t an easy way to see a list of the shorts so you can easliy watch them individually. The chapter stops don’t even fall at the beginning of each segment—sometimes there are several shorts within one chapter!

This combo pack also comes with a DVD and an iTunes digital copy. However, when I tried to redeem the digital copy, it only copies the file into iTunes and doesn’t make it available in iCloud (when the insert clearly states that it will).

Overall I was really disappointed with this “film”. With such an amazing cast it should have been so much better, but it just resorts to trashy humor that doesn’t even work. This is a rental at best, but most folks will be better off just skipping it.

What’s Included:

Film:

Blu-ray:
• Theatrical Version (1:34:07)
• Alternate Cut (1:38:04)
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
• English SDH, Spanish subtitles

DVD:

• Theatrical Version Only
• 480p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1
• English SDH, Spanish subtitles

Digital Copy: (Redemption Deadline 6/18/2015)

• Theatrical Version Only
• iTunes or Android (Beta) Digital Copy (transferred via the DVD)

Extras (Only available on the Blu-ray):

• Find Our Daughter (4:45)
  In this deleted short, a couple (Julianne Moore, Tony Shalhoub) talks to someone about finding their missing 18-year-old daughter. They provide him with the various school and family photos they have of her—all of which are topless.
• Theatrical Trailer (2:23)
• Sneak Peek (7:26)
  Trailers for The Heat, The Blu-ray Experience, 21 & Over and The Oranges. Includes a Play All option.

Final Thoughts:

Movie 43 is a film that was an interesting concept with an amazing cast that just completely failed. The collection of shorts are for the most part too crude, offensive and poorly executed, and the framing device used to connect them together is itself flawed and poorly written. The only bonus features included are an extra short that didn’t make it into the film, and an alternate cut which just provides an even worse framing device. This “movie” is a rental at best, but most viewers will just want to skip it.