Blue Streak (Blu-Ray)

Sony | 93 minutes | 1999 | PG-13 | Directed by: Les Mayfield |
Blu-Ray reviewed by: Matt Brighton

I've never really been much of a fan of Martin Lawrence, though I do admit at times I find myself chuckling at some of the things he says and does. Lawrence was one of the first black stand up comedians to make the transition from stage to screen. Most may remember Lawrence from his self-titled television show "Martin" back in the early to mid 90's. This led him to be cast next to Will Smith in 1995's "Bad Boys" and the rest, as they say, is history. Lawrence isn't and never really was the star that Will Smith is and was but he did manage to have a string of a few movies that were pretty popular and successful. 1999's "Blue Streak" was one of those and the success of that movie paved the way for Lawrence's bigger hit "Big Momma's House." Admittedly I'd never seen "Blue Streak" until it arrived on Blu-Ray, so I was curious but not expecting anything too great

Lawrence plays Miles Logan, a jewel thief who gets stopped short of nabbing a $17 million dollar diamond. One of his most trusted allies turns on him and the job goes awry. Before he gets caught by the police, however, Logan manages to secure the diamond in the heating duct of a building under construction. Flash forward a couple of years and Logan is once again a free man. He's got one thing on his mind: get the diamond and spend the rest of his life sipping margaritas. Too easy you say? But of course. Miles quickly finds out that the building that houses "his" diamond is now the new headquarters of the LAPD and there's no easy way to get to the third floor. He enlists the help of a friend who helps him sneak his way into the building under the guise of being a cop transferred from another precinct. Logan is partnered with Carlson (Luke Wilson) and the two hit it off. Now the crux is that getting the diamond is a bit easier said that done. You see, Logan's street smarts actually make him a very decent cop and it's only a matter of days before Logan is promoted to lead detective. Will Logan be able to pull this off being in the lion's den or will he be found out and thrown back in jail?

Admittedly, I enjoyed "Blue Streak", there's no real deep message here and the cast and crew seemed to have a good time. In addition to Lawrence's shenanigans we also have the comedic talent of Dave Chappelle as Logan's likeable, yet challenged partner and Luke Wilson plays well here too. The movie was a modest success when it was released back in the fall of 1999, nearly doubling its budget and this obviously paved the way for both Luke Wilson and Martin Lawrence. As mentioned earlier, "Big Momma's House" was a bit more financially successful, but suffice it to say that the early part of the 21st century was good to Martin Lawrence. "Blue Streak" didn't win any awards and it's a tad bit predictable, but if you're a fan of Lawrence or the genre, you could do a lot worse.

"Blue Streak" is presented in a 1.85:1 AVC HD transfer that looks pretty good on the new format. As I mentioned, I'd never seen the movie before so I really had no basis for comparison and I have to say that a few of the scenes were a bit grainy. The movie is just about a decade old, so some wear and tear on the transfer is expected, but by and large I was pretty pleased with how this looked. Flesh tones seemed warm and natural and the black levels seemed on target as well. Fine detail is noticeable in several scenes and though the print seemed a bit dingy, I was expecting worse.

Sony's given us a Dolby TrueHD mix of what was once a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The track sounds as expected, a lot of hip-hop music and some surround effects here and there. There's a shootout at the end of the movie which sounds decent, though I wouldn't classify it as demo material. Dialogue sounds rich and full as well. This is a good, if above average, mix on this Blu-Ray disc.

I'm racking my brain to figure out why exactly this and Lawrence's "National Security" are both being released on Blu-Ray. Usually there's some sort of marketing scheme involved or the actor has been involved in another huge movie but I can't find any parallels. Nevertheless, we get the same features that were found on the original standard DVD, minus the cast and crew bios and a trailer for this movie. HBO's "First Look" at the movie has some behind the scenes footage and another featurette gives us a history of the script and some of the production footage as well. We get trailers for a trio of other Sony titles as well as the same three music videos found on the standard DVD. The BD live is there, but no specific content for this movie was found.